On Thu, May 30, 2013 at 12:55 AM, Grant Edwards <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote: > On 2013-05-29, Dan Stromberg <drsali...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> And in case you still want a preprocessor for Python (you likely don't need >> one this time), here's an example of doing this using the venerable m4: >> https://pypi.python.org/pypi/red-black-tree-mod . Note the many comments >> added to keep line numbers consistent. > > I was wondering whether or not to mention m4. Since m4 is (in my > mind) inextricably linked to RATFOR and sendmail config files I try > to avoid thinking about it lest the flashbacks start again...
It's not a bad tool. I used it as a sort of PHP preprocessor, because requirements at work had me wanting to have a source file defining a PHP class and having an autogenerated section in the middle of that class. PHP's 'include' directive doesn't work for that. Of course, had we been using a better language, that wouldn't have been an issue (and it stopped being an issue when we improved the design and stopped using that class system, too, though I retained the makefile directives about building .php.m4 -> .php files). But still, GNU M4 is a decent piece of technology. ChrisA -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
