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- Here is the overview section of the id.texinfo document:
-
- Overview
- ********
-
- An ID database is simply a file containing a list of file names, a
- list of identifiers, and a binary relation (stored as a bit matrix)
- indicating which of the identifiers appear in each file. With this
- database and some tools to manipulate the data, a host of tasks
- become simpler and faster. You can `grep' through hundreds of files
- for a name, skipping the files that don't contain the name. You can
- search for all the memos containing references to a project. You can
- edit every file that calls some function, adding a new required
- argument. Anyone with a large software project to maintain, or a
- large set of text files to organize can benefit from the ID database
- and the tools that manipulate it.
-
- There are several programs in the ID family. The `mkid' program
- scans the files, finds the identifiers and builds the ID database.
- The `lid' and `aid' tools are used to generate lists of file names
- containing an identifier (perhaps to recompile every file that
- references a macro which just changed). The `eid' program will invoke
- an editor on each of the files containing an identifier and the `gid'
- program will `grep' for an identifier in the subset of files known to
- contain it. The `pid' tool is used to query the path names of the
- files in the database (rather than the contents). Finally, the `iid'
- tool is an interactive program supporting complex queries to
- intersect and join sets of file names.
-
- That ends the overview.
-
-
- To build and install mkid, look through the Makefile - all the various
- configuration options are (more or less :-) documented there. Change them
- around to work for your system, and type "make" to build the programs.
-
- To make the texinfo online documentation type "make id-info".
-
- To make the printed manual construct the .dvi file with "make id.dvi". You
- will have to figure out how printing .dvi files works on your system (talk
- to a local TeX guru -- if you don't have TeX, you won't be able to print the
- manual, sorry).
-