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From: Rui Maciel <rui.maciel@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: comp.programming
Subject: Re: Suggestions for a preprocessor
Date: Mon, 28 May 2012 12:32:13 +0100
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Fritz Wuehler wrote:

> Rui Maciel <rui.maciel@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> If you were given the task of generating a set of text files whose
>> different versions differed only in a set of numerical values, which tool
>> would you choose?
> 
> diff?

The objective is to generate a set of files with present different values 
specified by a parameter.  For example, let's assume we have this template:

<example>
Line (0,0) (XX,YY)
</example>

And, based on this template, a user intended to define N different data 
files, each one with different values for (XX, YY), with the values for XX 
and YY being defined in terms of an arbitrary algebraic expression.


>> The first tool that jumped to my mind was the M4 preprocessor, but it
>> appears it doesn't handle algebraic operations that well.
> 
> m4 doesn't seem to do anything well except edit sendmail.cnf files

After a bit of digging, I also ended up with the idea that m4 is limited to 
the point it is essentially useless.  Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but 
it appears m4 only supports algebraic operations on integers.  If it doesn't 
support floating point operations, or even decimal fractions, then it is 
essentially irrelevant for any task which involves non-integer numberical 
values.


Rui Maciel