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102 lines
4.4 KiB
OpenEdge ABL
102 lines
4.4 KiB
OpenEdge ABL
Using Inter.
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Using Inter at the command line.
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@h What Inter does.
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The command-line executable Inter packages up the back end of the Inform 7
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compiler into a stand-alone tool, and enables that back end to be used more
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flexibly. For example, it can read or write either textual or binary inter
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code, and can convert between them. It can also perform any of the numerous
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code-generation stages on the code it reads, in any sequence. In short, it
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aims to be a Swiss Army knife for inter code.
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Because of that, it's possible to test code-generation stages individually:
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we can read in some inter code from a text file, perform a single stage on
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it, and write it out as text again. This gives us a very helpful window into
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what Inform is doing; it also provides a test-bed for future optimisation,
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or for future applications of inter code.
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@h Command-line usage.
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If you have compiled the standard distribution of the command-line tools
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for Inform then the Inter executable will be at |inter/Tangled/inter|.
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Inter has three basic modes. In the first, the command line specifies only
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a single file:
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= (text as ConsoleText)
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$ inter/Tangled/inter INTERFILE
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=
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Inter simply verifies this file for correctness: that is, to see if the inter
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code supplied conforms to the inter specification. It returns the exit code 0
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if all is well, and issues error messages and returns 1 if not.
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Such files can be in either textual or binary form, and Inter automatically
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detects which by looking at their contents. (Conventionally, such files
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have the filename extension |.intert| or |.interb| respectively, but that's
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not how Inter decides.)
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@ In the second mode, Inter converts from textual to binary form or vice
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versa. The option |-binary X| writes a binary form of the inter to file |X|,
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and |-textual X| writes a text form. So, for example,
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= (text as ConsoleText)
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$ inter/Tangled/inter my.intert -binary my.interb
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=
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converts |my.intert| (a textual inter file) to its binary equivalent
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|my.interb|, and conversely:
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= (text as ConsoleText)
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$ inter/Tangled/inter my.interb -textual my.intert
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=
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@ In the third and most flexible mode, Inter runs the supplied code through
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a pipeline of processing stages. The pipeline, which must contain at least
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one stage, can be quite elaborate (see later), but for example:
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= (text as Inter Pipeline)
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read <- myfile.inter, resolve-conditional-compilation, generate inform6 -> myfile.i6
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=
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is a valid three-stage pipeline. The command to do this is then:
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= (text as ConsoleText)
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$ inter/Tangled/inter -pipeline-text 'PIPELINE'
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=
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where |PIPELINE| is a textual description like the one above. In practice,
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it may not be convenient to spell the pipeline out on the command line, so
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one can also put it into a text file:
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= (text as ConsoleText)
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$ inter/Tangled/inter -pipeline-file mypl.interpipeline
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=
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Pipelines can contain variables, and their values can be set at the command
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line with e.g.:
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= (text)
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-variable '*out=myfile.i6'
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=
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It is also possible to set the default directory for reading and writing files:
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= (text)
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-domain D
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@h Assimilation.
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Inform makes use of what are called "kits" of pre-compiled Inter code:
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for example, |CommandParserKit| contains code for the traditional interactive
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fiction command parser. For speed, Inter loads these as binary Inter, but
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that means they have to be compiled from time to time. This is called
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"assimilation".
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The source code for these could in priniple be textual Inter, but that's too
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verbose to write comfortably. In practice we use Inform 6 code as a notation,
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and therefore assimilation is really a cross-compilation from I6 to Inter.
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Kits are like so-called "fat binaries", in that they contain binary Inter
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for each different architecture with which they are compatible. Inter can
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assimilate for only one architecture at a time, so a command must specify
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which is wanted. For example:
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= (text as ConsoleText)
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$ inter/Tangled/inter -architecture 16 -assimilate K
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$ inter/Tangled/inter -architecture 32d -assimilate K
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=
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Incrementally assimilating kits as needed could be done with something like
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the Unix tool |make|, but in fact Inbuild has this ability: the command
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= (text as ConsoleText)
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$ inbuild/Tangled/inbuild -build K
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=
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looks at the kit, works out which architectures need re-assimilation, and
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then issues commands like the above to instruct |inter| to do so. Indeed,
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multiple kits can be managed with a single command:
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= (text as ConsoleText)
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$ inbuild/Tangled/inbuild -build -contents-of inform7/Internal/Inter
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