Miniproc, a general purpose preprocessor

Miniproc is a small general purpose text preprocessor. Miniproc is
intended to be a portable, and much simpler, alternative to perl and
M4. Miniproc is written in ANSI C. Some possible applications are:


    1. Preprocessor for languages which do not have their own standard
    preprocessor (ie, Fortran.) For use in preparing a single standard
    presource which is processed through miniproc to result in platform
    specific final source file(s).


    2. Make-like utility for batches of HTML files. Example, you have many
    documents which all include a standard disclaimer on the bottom. Change
    the disclaimer, and run a miniproc script to update the final HTML files.
    Or it could be run periodically in a batch queue to update dates within
    documents.


    3. Mailing lists. That is, whenever you need to generate
    many similar files which are all variants on a single template.


The miniproc home page is located at:


    http://seqaxp.bio.caltech.edu/www/miniproc.html


Follow the links from there to pick up the source distribution, which
contains:


    aaareadme.txt this file
    miniproc.c source code for miniproc
    miniproc.doc documentation for miniproc (text)
    miniproc_doc.html documentation for miniproc (html)
    testfile.mpc example input file
    test.txt example output files
    test2.txt


If you don't have a compiler, there are also binary distributions for
several different platforms with obvious names. The current ones are:


    miniproc_1_04_ovms_alpha_6_2.zip
    miniproc_1_04_irix_5_3.gz
    miniproc_1_04_solaris_gcc.gz
    miniproc_1_04_win32_codewarrior.zip
    miniproc_1_04_d_unix_decc.gz


The program is Known to build without warning or error on:


    OpenVMS Alpha, DECC
    Irix, SGI C
    Digital Unix, DECC
    Digital Unix, gnu cc
    Solaris, gnu cc
    Windows32, Metrowerks Codewarrior Pro 2


To build miniproc:


  OpenVMS with DECC


      $ cc/standard=ansi89/prefix=all/warn=enable=all miniproc.c
      $ link miniproc


  Digital Unix with DECC


      % cc -std1 -o miniproc miniproc.c


  Irix


      % cc -ansi -o miniproc miniproc.c


  GCC (any platform)


      % gcc -ansi -pedantic -o miniproc miniproc.c


  Windows 32, Codewarrior Pro 2


      Build it as an ANSI C "windows console application"


      (However, stat() is broken on the Codewarrior release that I have, so
      stat() based functions don't work correctly.)


To test miniproc:


  If your operating system overwrites files (most do), do the equivalent of:


  $ rename test.txt etest.txt
  $ rename test2.txt etest2.txt


  then run it with


  $ miniproc testfile.mpc test1=1 test2=0 test3=0


  and compare the results with


  $ diff test.txt etest.txt
  $ diff test2.txt etest2.txt


  (Some systems may see slightly different file structures for the newly
  created test*.txt files and the test*.txt files provided in the distribution.)


This software may be used freely, but may not be redistributed. You
may modify this sofware for your own use, but you may not incorporate
any part of the original code into any other piece of software which
will then be distributed (whether free or commercial) unless prior
written consent is obtained. For more information, or to report bugs,
contact:


David Mathog
mathog@seqaxp.bio.caltech.edu
Manager, sequence analysis facility, biology division, Caltech
[Simpler than M4? How could anything be simpler than M4? -John]




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