Tools for manipulating message catalogs

[Kee Hinckley]

In article <1991Apr19.130632.17861 at dg-rtp.dg.com> eliot at dg-rtp.dg.com writes:
>Someone sent me some mail with a suggestion that I thought was good.  I was
>waiting to see it posted, but I'll go ahead and do it.  The suggestion was
>that the input catalog should look like:
>
>$set 1 BASEMSGS
>1	ERRMSG		"Error in application foo:"
>2	WARNMSG		"Warning:"

Unless I misunderstand you, this is essentially what I do, except that I 
tried to remain compatible with the standard.  The spec says that anything
after "$set n" is a comment, and anything after "$ " is a comment, so
I just made comments that begin with "#" special.

$set 1 #Foo
$ #ErrMsg
1 "Error in application foo:"
$ #WarnMsg
2 "Warning"

This generates

#define FooSet  0x1
#define FooErrMsg       0x1
#define FooWarnMsg      0x2

Unless you use the '-or' option, which is useful if you want to simplify
things down to a single set and msgid number.

/* Use these Macros to compose and decompose setId's and msgId's */
#ifndef MCMakeId
# define MCMakeId(s,m)  (unsigned long)(((unsigned short)s<<(sizeof(short)*8))\
					|(unsigned short)m)
# define MCSetId(id)    (unsigned int) (id >> (sizeof(short) * 8))
# define MCMsgId(id)    (unsigned int) ((id << (sizeof(short) * 8))\
					>> (sizeof(short) * 8))
#endif

#define FooSet  0x1
#define FooErrMsg       0x10001
#define FooWarnMsg      0x10002

>and so on.  From this one could generate a .h file, and allow the .c file to
>use the symbolic values (BASEMSGS, ERRMSG, WARNMSG, etc), and yet still avoid
>the danger of accidental renumbering.  Of course if you WANT automatic
>renumbering then this approach isn't for you.  But with this approach manual
Right.  The automatic number I simply do by replacing the initial number
with '#', which is the main thing I believe you disagree with.  But it's
optional.


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I'm not sure which upsets me more: that people are so unwilling to accept
responsibility for their own actions, or that they are so eager to regulate
everyone else's.