Subject: Wanted: C/perl/sh/x86asm (etc) programming tools
To: None <current-users@NetBSD.ORG>
From: Travis Hassloch x231 <travis@evtech.com>
List: current-users
Date: 07/25/1996 11:30:06
While I don't make it a habit of posting to multiple lists, I wanted
to be as ecumenical as possible so as to get the most responses.
I've searched UGU and a couple other archives, but I'm still looking for:
programming tools for...
C - including ``code exploration'' tools for trying to track code flow
through the kernel and other large beasts...
so far: ctags, cflow (is out for Linux, prob FreeBSD too), [x]lint
sh - m4 works beautifully; snagged a bunch of macros from autoconf and
dressed them up to be what _could_ be a mostly-shell-independent
programming language (I use that term with strong reservations).
I use it here at work to generate portable but highly redundant
shell scripts that don't rely on fancy features like, oh, the
case statement or shell functions... ;) or that they work right.
It'd work okay for doing simple scripts that just set envars
and envars that point to other envars by name, and could do
nested command subst on sh's that don't support it with temp vars...
PERL - no real programming tools here, but there's a byacc that emits
C or PERL (sort of a overstatement, since you have to write the
actions and headers for the rules in one or the other) that
lets you throw together parsers quickly (hope your lexer is simple)
A ``perlflow'' utility, if possible, would be nice
misc - it'd be nice to maintain keyword and/or function names across
large hierarchies of code; I would probably generate database for C
mostly, but it'd be nice to have a framework to parse the info out
of any language. Maybe some search engine like pursuit might work
but there has to be something better for code
WEB, noweb, nuweb(?) look interesting, haven't used 'em
Something to show variable lifetimes (first use, last use) would be
nice in several languages, but most notably assembler
--
Travis Hassloch, Illuminatus Double-Prime | P=NP if (P=0 or N=1)
``Software code is the language that makes computer programs run'' [sic]