TeX 1995 July/TeX CD-ROM July 1995 (Disc 1)(Walnut Creek)(1995).ISO/macros/plain/contrib/wrtfdist.readme

Internet Message Format | 1992-10-25 | 1.9 KB

From: [e-mail] (Cameron Smith)
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
Date: 25 Oct 92 04:24:17 GMT
Organization: none

Everything below the "cut here" line is "wrtfdist.tex",
the distribution file for "wrtfile.tex".  This is a short
TeX file containing code that allows you to put (for example)

   \FILE abc.def
   Mary had a little lamb,
   its fleece was white as snow.
   \EOF

into a TeX file and have the lines "Mary...lamb," and "its...snow."
written out to a file "abc.def" when the original file is TeXed.
This functionality is identical with that of Jonathan Fine's
"filechop.tex", which was posted to the UKTeX Digest recently
(Volume 92, Issue 37, Friday, 9 Oct 1992).  Fine's code is simpler
than mine and executes faster, but its definition of \FILE uses
\EOF as a delimiter to gather up the entire text to be written out
as a parameter.  This places potentially severe limitations on the
amount of text that can be written.  My implementation uses a loop
to write one line at a time until \EOF is seen, so there is no limit
on the size of files that can be created.

My version also allows you to say "\TYPE" instead of "\FILE <name>",
to have lines written to the terminal and log file instead of to another
file.  This is useful for presenting prompts or informatinal messages
in interactive TeX programs.

The file "wrtfdist.tex" itself uses the "wrtfile" code to create "read.me",
"wrtfile.doc", and "wrtfile.tex" when TeXed.  Try it out and read the
"read.me" file for more information.

Finally, everyone should feel free to redistribute "wrtfdist.tex",
and to use the code in "wrtfile.tex" to create "package files" like
this one, but archivists please note the redistribtion restrictions:
don't break apart the files and store them separately, put *only*
the package file "wrtfdist.tex" into your archives.  Thank you.

Hope this is of use--
--Cameron Smith
  [e-mail]