# $Id: README,v 8.2 2012/08/30 21:05:46 ksb Exp $
#

The tools is one of ksb's best friends, that doesn't mean you have to
be friends with it.  It is a strange markup language that lets him
build UNIX shell command line parsers from lots of component parts
(named like "command.m").  This is the glue that holds all of his
tools together, so you can't build anything he coded in C without it.

It is not something you want to learn, unless you want to code new
tools in the "ksb style".  If you just want to manaintain ports of his
tools you just need to use it.  Changes to the embedded C code usually
don't require you to understand the meta language that binds them
together, for example.

You can always run mkcmd to build the plain C code, then maintain that
code as if that were the original program.  Just like yacc, lex, or
rpcgen -- the output is just plain C.

There are about 13k lines of code in the mkcmd repo (lib/mkcmd) and some
of them (like std_help.m and util_ppm.m) are used in many 100's of programs.
That's not to say that anyone else needs to learn mkcmd to be happy.  But
you should learn msrc to be happy.

I've changed mkcmd a little since I left PUCC, don't blame anyone at Purdue
for mkcmd -- they don't use it anymore as far as I can tell.  But I'm
not going back to coding manpages, parsers, and importing code with cut/paste.

Below is the original PUCC README (which is really out of date).  Now days
you just let "msrc_base" install mkcmd and don't ever think about it again.


  -- ksb, Oct 2009   (bugs to mkcmd at-no-spam-please ksb.npcguild.org)


--- snip ---
Here at PUCC (The Purdue University Computing Center) we administer
lots of UNIX platforms.  We sometimes have to run off quick tools to
solve problems for our customers.  This program lets us build a nifty
command line option parser and some on-line documentation in a snap.


First edit the Makefile here to change `/usr/local/lib/mkcmd' and
`/usr/local/bin' if you do not want to install this program under
/usr/local.  You can look at other tuning params in "machine.h" and
override them in CDEFS in the Makefile.
	vi Makefile

Build mkcmd:
	make all

Install mkcmd:
	make install

If you have mkcat (a PUCC tool to install manual pages):
	mkcat mkcmd.man

Install the library files:
	(cd ../lib; make install)

Test mkcmd:
	make self

Read the Notes file again, try some stuff from ../../examples.

Send bugs with a *.m file to me.  Patches are OK too :-).

--
"Cold waves wash over, and drift away with dreams of youth.
 So time is stolen, I cannot hold you long enough."              --Enya
kayessbee, ksb+mkcmd@npcguild.org (Kevin S Braunsdorf)