ext-rep file naming

[Peter Dobcsanyi]

On Wed, Oct 06, 2004 at 12:45:05PM +0100, Leonard Soicher wrote:
> I propose to generalize the "parameter_section" to become the 
> "list_invariant_section", and to be of the form 
> 
> xxxnnn-yyymmm-...
> 
> where xxx,yyy,...  are non-empty strings of letters (upper and lower
> case allowed) and nnn,mmm,... are (possibly empty) strings of digits.
...

I agree. The suggested method is already implemented in the
"mk-database-index" utility (Version: 0.2 / 257 and up).

> I also propose that we do not insist that all files in a given
> directory have exactly the same list of names for list invariants, so
> that it would be possible to have a blank entry in the table for a
> given file for a given list invariant.

I am still thinking on the implementation of this variable list
invariants feature. That could be a bit tricky. Start with these files:

    a2-b333333-c4 
    a4-b1-c5-d11 

So far so good, but if the directory also contains files like:

    a99-n
    a1-d2 

then it would not be easy to decide what should be the correct header of
the corresponding table. Some file names can be mistyped, etc.

One way around this could be to use a template file, say ".invariants",
which would list (and also fix the order of) the valid codes for list
invariants in the given directory. For example, if ".invariants"
contained the line:

    a b c d

then the firs two files and the last one above would be OK, but "a99-n"
would be rejected.

--             ,
    Peter Dobcsanyi