[Axiom-developer] Re: noweb "bug" (was: article "standard" header/footer)

[Ralf Hemmecke]

Hello,

root wrote:
> re: noweb bug
>
>    i don't agree with Norman. *I* consider it a bug.
>    especially so since Ralf fixed the same "feature" independently.
>    noweb does the wrong thing with certain non-chunks.
>    if the chunk isn't in the hashtable complain and continue.
>
>    i diagnosed the bug, fixed it, and sent off a diff -Naur patch.
>    which is exactly the way open source is supposed to work.
>    Norman disagreed with my patch and rejected it. that's his call.
>    which is exactly the way open source is supposed to work.
>    but we still NEED the patch. Axiom won't build without it.
>    so we get the UNMODIFIED sources, apply the patch, and build.

I did not know of the original messages for Tim's need to "fix" noweb.
I've read through them and have to agree with Norman. If he doesn't like 
it and suggests even an awk script, that is just fine for me.

The stuff that I am working around is a bit different. My problem was 
that noweb complains about non-ending module names where it should not.

Try to tangle the file

%%%%% test.nw %%%%%
A test file.

<<*>>=
-- Here comes some code
<<: A -> B
<<: (A, B) -> X
@
and we go on with the text.

%%%%%% end test.nw %%%%

According to the specification noweb, the line
<<: A -> B
should be just fine, since there is no >> on the same line. But instead 
markup warns with

Module name doesn't end

and returns an error. So I cannot apply a filter, because the bug is at 
the very early stage. Here is a part of the mail from Norman Ramsey that 
I got about half a year ago when I reported this strange behaviour.

---BEGIN
My errors are different:

  : address@hidden 14642 ; $NW/markup /tmp/test.nw >/dev/null
  /tmp/test.nw:5: Module name doesn't end
  /tmp/test.nw:6: Module name doesn't end

This behavior still doesn't meet noweb's specification, so you've
found a bug.
---END

Last night, I dived into markup.nw and believe that I have found the bug.

One should simply replace the line

    errorat(filename, lineno, Error, "Module name doesn't end", line);

by

    errorat(filename, lineno, Normal, "Module name doesn't end", line);

and the error is gone. I've sent this to Norman. Let's see what he says.