Re: Need 'UncommentAndSetValue' or some such

[Brendan Strejcek]

Luke Kanies wrote:

> On Thu, 27 Oct 2005, Brendan Strejcek wrote:
> 
> >     editfiles:
> >         { /etc/texmf/dvips/config.ps
> >             DeleteLinesMatching "^@\+ %%PaperSize: Letter$"
> >             DeleteLinesMatching "^@ letterSize 8.5in 11in$"
> >             # Since we are using prepend, the second one is listed first
> >             PrependIfNoSuchLine "@+ %%PaperSize: Letter"
> >             PrependIfNoSuchLine "@ letterSize 8.5in 11in"
> >         } 
> 
> Even in your snippet, which is relatively straightforward code, it
> is by no means obvious what the heck you are doing. I don't know
> PostScript, so I have to assume that '^' is the comment character in
> PostScript, and I also have to assume that when you say that A4 is
> the default, you mean that it's the program's default, not that it's
> specified in the configuration by default (since you don't perform any
> operations involving this format).

Is that Postscript? :-) Actually, the ^ is just part of the regular
expression. In this case, the configuration change arrises from the
"Letter" lines being earlier in the file than the "a4" lines (so I am
relying on the prepend).

> The intent of this operation -- "use letter" -- would fail if someone
> had explicitly specified any value at all, and anyone coming behind
> you would have to rely entirely on comments to discern what the heck
> you are doing.

Actually, it will still work because those two lines will always show up
at the beginning of the file.

Best,
Brendan

--
Senior System Administrator
The University of Chicago
Department of Computer Science
http://www.cs.uchicago.edu/people/brendan