Re: porting Lout

[Basile STARYNKEVITCH]

>>>>> "Jeff" == Jeff Kingston <<address@hidden>, address@hidden> writes:

    Aaron> I haven't gone through the code, but perhaps Jeff can
    Aaron> comment.

    Jeff> I draw the line at doing ports myself, partly because I
    Jeff> don't have the expertise in the target systems, but mainly
    Jeff> because I'm snowed under keeping the Unix system together.
 
    Jeff> Lout is written in C and the code itself should port
    Jeff> anywhere.  It makes system calls to fopen(), ftell(),
    Jeff> fclose(), link(), unlink(), rename(), and system() and
    Jeff> perhaps one or two others.  system() is used for the sorting
    Jeff> of database index files (sorted reference lists and sorted
    Jeff> indexes are built out of this too) and for the filtered
    Jeff> parameters of Version 3 which are at present used in that
    Jeff> standard packages only for C and C++ prettyprinting.  If the
    Jeff> target system has equivalents for thesee functions I don't
    Jeff> see why the port should take more than a couple of hours.
    Jeff> Of course, I'm no expert.

There is also some time() and localtime() calls (in z27.c and
z35.c). Perhaps Lout should also call stat() to get the modification
time of files. This would enable the recreation of *.li files from
*.ld files automagically. (of course timestamping test could be leaved
to a utility like make).

IMHO the only difficulty (outside the system(3) library call) is the filenames.

On MessyLoss, there is that damned 8+3 name limit. Perhaps the .lout
extension should become (on MsDog only - please don't change it on
Unix) .lot or .lou.

Also, on some occasions Lout add an extension to a existing file. For
instance, i have some @Cite{$..} in my bibliographical database file
eumref.ld (because for an article InBook the InTitle contains a
@Cite{$..}). This makes lout create an eumref.ld.ld file.



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Basile STARYNKEVITCH   ----  Commissariat a l Energie Atomique
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