Re: [Axiom-developer] [build-improvements] Requests for discussion

[Ralf Hemmecke]

> | If I understand the question, you are asking how we can have only literate 
> | program files in Axiom at the get go and still not depend on noweb.  The 
> | simple answer is, we can't. 
>
> Actually, we can if we don't insist that literate files must be
> pamphlet files or we must use noweb :-) 

Well, isn't it much simpler? We are speaking here about the generation 
of code, so we mean notangle.

If for the bootstrapping file configure.ac.pamplet (that should be 
enough?) we restrict to just several code chunks of the form

<<*>>=
code here
@
...
<<*>>=
other code
@

All these <<*>> chunks are linearly concatenated by notangle to give the 
final output. For that simple task, I am sure that it is not too 
difficult to write a sed or awk script. And the initial dependency on 
noweb would be gone. Any sed/awk-programmers out there? Ehm, but then it 
might depend on awk... what programs are usually assumed to exist before 
I run ./configure? Windows/Un*x-like/MacOS systems are quite differnt.

I am not sure whether also the Makefile.am.pamphlet files could/should 
be written in such a linear way. But all the non-pamphlet world can 
handle just Makefile.am and that is linear. So where would a pamphlet 
format impose some dependency on noweb for the configure process?

Ralf