Re: Perl for DOCSTRINGs

[Daniel J Sebald]

On 04/28/2016 06:16 PM, Rik wrote:
> On 04/28/2016 03:53 PM, address@hidden wrote:
> > Subject:
> > Re: how to not break cross-building
> > From:
> > "John W. Eaton" <address@hidden>

[snip]

> > Either way, I think we could eliminate the need for the preprocessor
> > just having a perl script search for DEFUN and extract the docstrings.
> > But it would be simpler to not have to deal with escape sequences.
>
> This was discussed way back at OctConf 2012 in Montreal.  jwe
> implemented his half, adding support for a separate file to hold
> docstrings that could be read when Octave started.  I got about halfway
> through the Perl script and then became busy with other projects.  I'm
> still busy, but will take a look at this again.  It would be really nice
> not to have to have to mess with escape sequences.

Another alternative is to write an Octave script to do the same thing as 
the Perl script.  Once Octave is built, run a script that descends into 
the directory tree and extracts the C strings.  I'm recalling some 
Octave commands that process escape sequences, so maybe the C-string 
escape-sequence work intended to avoid is already built into some simply 
Octave command.  Commands like "dir", etc. give a list of directories, 
file names.  The advantage is that the Octave script is by default 
portable across systems.  The drawback is that Octave has to build and 
run properly to get the documentation, if that is a problem.

Dan