At Tue, 07 Jan 2003 15:17:07 +1100, Bruce Badger wrote: > I guess if i could have a file like "next-tuesday-talk.mgp.spec" that > looked like: > $include 'common-header.mgp' > $include 'funny-story-1.mgp' > $include 'technical-bit-1.mgp' > ...etc... > > ... and have a script to bolt it all together to make > "next-tuesday-talk.mgp'. Is there any tool around that will just do > this kind of thing, or do I need to write my own script?
plenty of tools around. cpp (or "gcc -E") is one you might already be familiar with: #include "common-header.mgp" #include "funny-story-1.mgp" #include "technical-bit-1.mgp % cpp next-tuesday-talk.mgp.spec next-tuesday-talk.mgp you may have problems with extra blank lines and "#line 75" directives inserted in the output. iirc, mgp will see these as harmless comments and they will probably be very useful to your debugging, but you can use -P to turn them off. one of the more generic and powerful tools around is probably m4 (as used by autoconf to generate configure.in for example), but it can take a bit of getting used to if you wish: include(`common-header.mgp') include(`funny-story-1.mgp') include(`technical-bit-1.mgp') % m4 next-tuesday-talk.mgp.spec > next-tuesday-talk.mgp if the quoting characters conflict with your normal text too often, one of the first things you may want to do is redefine them (autoconf sets them to [ and ]) - see m4 docs. both of these tools will also allow substitutions and conditionals. m4 even allows you to define fairly complex functions. almost any talk i give that has more than one source file, has a Makefile to help me avoid typing (and remember command lines). you might want to consider doing the same. -- - Gus -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group - http://slug.org.au/ More Info: http://lists.slug.org.au/listinfo/slug
