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From: armstrng@cs.dal.ca (Stan Armstrong)
Newsgroups: comp.text
Subject: Re: String functions in TeX: instr and extract
Message-ID: <1989Aug31.142820.18594@cs.dal.ca>
Date: 31 Aug 89 14:28:20 GMT
References: <1989Aug30.133802.15579@cs.dal.ca> <GRUNWALD.89Aug30090437@anchor.colorado.edu>
Reply-To: armstrng@cs.dal.ca.UUCP (Stan Armstrong)
Organization: Math, Stats & CS, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada
Lines: 30

In article <GRUNWALD.89Aug30090437@anchor.colorado.edu> grunwald@flute.cs.uiuc.edu writes:
>
>would
>
>\def\VmsFileName#1::#2:[#3.#4]#5.#6;#7{
> \gdef\nodename{#1}
> \gdef\devicename{#2}
>	..etc..
>}
>
>work?

I don't see how that helps.  We currently have hundreds of documents which
contain \input{vmsfilename} commands.  My bias is against changing all of
these commands to something else.  That rules out a list of parameters.
Besides, any one of the above parts may be missing from the filename and
will be defaulted by VMS (except for the name and extension).  Furthermore,
the directory specification may contain any number of subdirectories.
For example, I need to be able to parse the following:

     \input{devname:file.ext}
     \input{[dir.subdir1]file.ext}
     \input{devname:[dir.subdir1.subdir2]file.ext}

The only way I can think of to solve this is using instr and extract
functions as described in my first posting.

Any more suggestions anyone?

Ben Armstrong (UUCP: armstrng@dalcs BITNET: armstrong@STMARYS)