GENER8 — Text Preprocessor

What’s New?

• Here are all changes in the past couple of years, and selected changes from before then.
   
• 9 Dec 2021: Program v8.1.6: Updated the script to reference BrownMath.com, the new home of GENER8, and moved the Web pages there from OakRoadSystems.com. The download is now a ZIP file instead of a bare AWK file, which could have had transmission errors that the user was unaware of.
• 19 Oct 2021: In the manual: noted that all predefined macros’ names are upper-case letters, and suggested defining your own macros with names that are not all upper-case letters, to avoid inadvertent conflicts.
• 14 July 2021: Program v8.1.5: Added %#; when used in a macro definition it stands for the number of arguments actually supplied when the macro is called.
• 12/13 Nov 2020: Program v8.1.4: Added the #include-always directive, for use with an include file that may contain #elif, #else, or #endif directives.

  In the manual: Added a method of preserving spaces at the beginning or end of a macro definition.

• 20 Oct 2020: Program v8.1.3: Added the logo=no option.
• 21 June 2020: Program v8.1.2: Updated Oak Road Systems URL from http:// to https://.
• 29 Aug 2018: Program v8.1.1: Added the #commentregexp directive, to let you change the comment marker from the default <!-- ignore -->.
• 9 June 2018: Program v8.1:
  • Changed the #include ! directive to #include!, though the old form is still allowed.

  In the manual:

  • Added a new section, Directives and Predefined Macros by Category, putting all of them on one screen to avoid endless scrolling when you’re searching for something but you don’t know its name.
  • Added the strftime format codes.
  • Moved the full table of contents to the end, keeping just a short table of contents at the beginning.
  • Moved sections around for better logical flow, and add numerous clarifications in the text.
  • Removed obsolete references to mktime.awk and maketoc.awk, files that have not been needed for some time.
• 25 Apr 2016: Program v8.0:
  • This version is as platform independent as I can make it, without non-Windows systems to test on. / and \ in file paths are handled correctly for your operating system, and I believe I have correct UNIX commands for finding file date and size (though I have no way to test them). Please feel free to draw incompatibilities to my attention, and I will address them!
  • The new DATE macro converts the system date or any other dates to desired formats.
  • The new FILESIZE macro retrieves the size of a given file in bytes, KB, MB, or GB.
  • The FILEDATE macro now works in Windows XP or any later Windows, with no more need for a shell like TCCLE, and it no longer requires the separate mktime.awk program.
  • FILEDATE and DATE accept dates in year-month-day, day-month-year, and month-day-year format for conversion, and you register the system date format by using the DATE_SYSFORMAT macro.
  • FILEDATE and DATE convert three-letter months Jun, Jul, and Sep to four-letter June, July, and Sept following some style guides. However, you can alter this behavior by using the DATE_MONTHS4 macro.

  In the manual: Corrected a misstatement about the ARITH macro: %d and %i truncate to an integer rather than rounding. Warned about environment variables not in upper case. Numerous small edits for clarity.

• 7 Apr 2016: Program v7.5.2a: The EXISTS macro is no longer dependent on the operating system, and it’s much faster too.
• 3 Apr 2016: Program v7.5.2: The unregistered and registered versions are now identical.
  This is the first version published on the Web.
• 27 Jan 2016: Program v7.5.1: In debug mode, print the actual arguments passed to gensub( ).
• 15 Jun 2014: Program v7.5: Added the TOCMIN and TOCMAX macros. Table-of-contents processing is now available only in the registered version of GENER8.
  User manual: Simplified the text describing how the TOCB macro does its processing.
• 7 Jun 2014: Program v7.4: Added the #info directive.
• 30 May 2014: Program v7.3.1: Added the TOCF macro.
• 26 Apr 2013: Program v7.2: Added the #tocif directive and #tocinsertli directive.
• 7 Apr 2013: Program v7.1: Added the REGPRE macro and REGSET macro.
• 1 Jan 2013: Program v7.0:
  • Added automatic tables of contents, with the TOCB macro. The tocmin and tocmax options are used in the implementation and not intended for use by users..
  • Added the IIFDEF macro.
  • About half of the predefined macros weren’t checking their numbers of arguments, and those that did gave inconsistent error messages. Now they all check, using the new common macroArgCountCheck function.
• 15 May 2011: Program v6.9: Added the IIF macro.
• 19–22 Dec 2008: Program v6.8: Added the EXISTS macro. Added the milopt and custom2 date formats to the FILEDATE macro.
• 27 Jul 2008: Program v6.7: Added the DEFINED macro.
• 26 Jan 2008: Program v6.6: Added the LOWER macro and UPPER macro.
• 12 Jan 2008: Program v6.5: Added the #macrosep directive and #macrosepregexp directive, letting me cross off the problem of spaces in macro arguments and stop worrying about reflowed text generating macro errors.
• 6 Jan 2008: Program v6.4: Added the #includepath directive and the picky argument for the #picky directive.
• 11 Mar 2007: Program v6.3: Added the GDEL macro.
• 1 Feb 2005: Program v6.2: Added the ENV macro.
• 24 Jun 2004: Program v6.0:
  • Completely overhauled the ARITH macro: a wider range of operators is now allowed, and the usual rules of precedence are followed; for example 2+3*4 is now 14 instead of 20.
  • The #if directive and #elif directive now expand macro calls, and use identical expression syntax to the the ARITH macro.
• 25 May 2004: Program v5.4: Added the INCLUDEFILE macro.
• 24 Apr 2004:Program v5.3: Added the picky option and the #picky directive.
• 1 Apr 2004: Program v5.2: Overhauled the internals of macro parsing and macro replacement.
• 28 Mar 2004: Program v5.1: Added the && and || operators to the ARITH macro.
• 21 Jan 2003: Program v4.1: Added the GSUB macro.
• 25 Nov 2002: First edition of the GENER8 Scripting Manual.
• 26 May 2002: Program version 1.0.