On 4/2/20 10:47 PM, Caveman Al Toraboran wrote:
wow, didn't know sendmail's syntax was so hard it needed a compiler
:D thank you very much for your help. highly appreciated.
I think that's an inaccurate statement.
First, m4 is a macro package, not a compiler.
Second, the macros are used to reduce the size of the macro config (mc)
file to something manageable instead of hundreds of lines that are easy
to cause a syntax mistake.
Third, the macros made the mc file more semantics in nature instead of
Sendmail config file (cf) specific. Meaning that one line allows
changing values in multiple places that use the common information, like
the domain name(s).
My home system has a 33 line mc file (including comments) that expands
to 1915 lines of cf file (including comments).
Both the input and output is ASCII text. Humans can read both of them.
Humans that understand cf syntax can read both files.
This is far from turning something into byte code.
--
Grant. . . .
unix || die
