Use of sppp.awk

[Jose E. Marchesi]

> Good morning, everyone,
>
> Seems that I'm actually coding a bit on transput... bit of a slow
> start.

Awesome! :)

> Working with sppp.awk I'm finding one thing that I don't quite like and I
> have a suggestion...
>
> Here is my declaration of mode SimplIn:
>
> mode {ℵ₀} SimplIn = union (
>   {iter L {short short } {short } {} {long } {long long }}
>   {L}int, {L}bits
>   {reti {,}}
>   ,
>   {iter L {} {long } {long long }}
>   {L}real, {L}compl
>   {reti {,}}
>   ,
>   ref bool, ref char, ref [] char, ref string);
>
> What if instead we had "reti" take two arguments - the "separator" and the
> "terminator"?  That would look like this:
>
> mode {ℵ₀} SimplIn = union (
>   {iter L {short short } {short } {} {long } {long long }}
>   {L}int, {L}bits
>   {reti {,} {,}}
>   {iter L {} {long } {long long }}
>   {L}real, {L}compl
>   {reti {,} {,}}
>   ref bool, ref char, ref [] char, ref string);
>
> I propose this as I don't fancy those commas "hanging out in space" like
> that.  Also this would make the generated code look more tidy.
>
> Here's another example, where van Vliet uses "xlx" to represent variable
> names incorporating a length indicator:
>
>     int
>     {iter xlx {short_short_} {short_} {} {long_} {long_long_}}
>       {xlx}int_width
>     {reti {,} {,}}
>     {iter xlx {} {long_} {long_long_}}
>       {xlx}real_width, {xlx}exp_width
>     {reti {,} {;}}
>
> You see I've used comma as the first terminator and semicolon as the second
> above.

Makes sense, and I like that the generated code looks tidier.  I am down
with the flu right now and once I recover I will have a lot of backlog
to attend to in $DAYJOB, but will see to implement this in sppp.awk at
some point in the near future.  In the meanwhile, please use the
existing facilities, don't let me detain you :)