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<== Date ==> <== Thread ==>

Subject: Re: macLib/msi changes with 3.14.10
From: Till Straumann <[email protected]>
To: Andrew Johnson <[email protected]>
Cc: [email protected]
Date: Mon, 26 Oct 2009 08:19:57 -0600
Andrew.

Thanks for the explanation - this makes sense. Not knowing about
the issue I had just used the old msi version.

One more question: I suppose 'dbLoadRecords()' does use macLib
so that

dbLoadRecords("file_with_<$(xxx,undefined)>.db", "xxx=value")

should work. Correct?

Thanks again
-- Till

Andrew Johnson wrote:
Hi Till,

On Thursday 22 October 2009 18:41:05 Till Straumann wrote:
I'm not a macLib MSI expert but just used
the MSI tool to do db expansions. One thing
I used to do a lot is use MSI for 'partial'
expansions where I leave some macros unexpanded.

This is still supported (as long as you're feeding the resulting files back into macLib), although you need a new version of msi and you will still get a warning message from it.

I noticed that with 3.14.10 the behavior
of macExpandString() changed drastically
which breaks things for me.

The change occurred when I added support for scoped macros in 3.14.10, but I obviously forgot to list them in the release notes. However, read on...

Under 3.14.8.2

  echo 'unexpanded=${XXX}' | msi

produces

  unexpanded=${XXX}

on stdout and msi terminates without error.

Under 3.14.10 however, the same pipeline
produces

  on stdout:    unexpanded=$(XXX,undefined)

and

  on stderr:    input: unexpanded=${XXX}
                  which is in line 1 of file stdin
and terminates with an error.

A new version of msi was released on 2008-11-10, so using msi release 1-5 (with R3.14.11, but 3.14.10 is identical) I get this:

tux% echo 'unexpanded=${XXX}' | msi
unexpanded=$(XXX,undefined)
Warning: unexpanded macros in ouput
tux% echo $status
0

The Warning: line comes out on stderr and the main text on stdout just as before; the new version does not terminate with an error status however. You can add a -V flag to msi to get a more verbose warning message on stderr.

However, when it subsequently expands them again the macLib code will completely ignore the ",undefined" part of the modified macro names, so you can still feed the msi output straight into dbLoadRecords without any problems.

Couldn't find anything in the release notes documenting
this rather drastic change.

Mea culpa, but it's not as drastic as you think as long as you upgrade msi and aren't using some other code to expand the output files.

How can I convince macLib/MSI that I want undefined
macros to be copied verbatim?

You can't disable the addition of the ",undefined" flag in the current version, or prevent the braces from being replaced by parentheses.

Scoped macros now allow you to define other macro values within the scope of the one being expanded. If we define these:
    X   = $(Y_$(n))
    Y_1 = A
    Y_2 = B
then expanding $(X,n=1) temporarily defines n=1 so will return "A" and $(X,n=2) will return "B", but in both cases the macro $(n) will never be visible outside of the scope of the expansion of $(X). You can even temporarily redefine other macros, so that expanding $(X,n=1,Y_1=C) $(X,n=1) returns "C A". Demo:

    tux% msi -M 'X=$(Y_$(n)),Y_1=A,Y_2=B'
    $(X,n=1)
    A
    $(X,n=2)
    B
    $(X,n=1,Y_1=C) $(X,n=1)
    C A

Default values have been available since R3.14.6, using the syntax $(X=def) which will return "def" is X is not defined.

HTH,

- Andrew


Replies:
Re: macLib/msi changes with 3.14.10 Andrew Johnson
References:
macLib/msi changes with 3.14.10 Till Straumann
Re: macLib/msi changes with 3.14.10 Andrew Johnson

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