• NAME
• SYNOPSIS
• ABSTRACT
• DESCRIPTION
• INTERNALS
  • parse
  • minmaxYear
  • dopos
  • linkup
  • dump
  • chml
  • info
  • biblio
  • setcolor
  • setshape
  • setweights_vcg
  • vcg

NAME

parsech - Parse Comp-Hist

SYNOPSIS

A parser for the Computer History Graphing Project.

    parsech -o [dump|chml|info|vcg|biblio]
    parsech -h
    parsech -v 
    parsech -s(desired dopos scaling)

ABSTRACT

parsech is a unified parser for the Comp-Hist project. It came about thanks to the fact that I was sick of writing a new parser for each new format we decided to support.

Oh, and I wanted documentation, too.

DESCRIPTION

parsech will take three arguments at this point, plus all the files you want parsed.

-o output

This switch dictates the output format. Currently, it will take the following arguments: dump, chml, vcg, info, or biblio.

-v version

This switch will print out the version and exit.

-h help

This switch will print a brief help message and exit.

-s scaling

This switch will set the value used by dopos to scale the vcg output.

INTERNALS

parse

The parse subroutine does the heavy lifting involved in parsing, and really should be the only function that ever touches the file's contents.

The data fields are parsed as follows:

First, a regexp filters out the comments (s/#.*//)

Next, we check to see if it's a node nick field, and sets stuff up if it is.

Then, we look for a Name: field and set that up.

After that, date parsing happens.

Then, reference parsing is done.

As a follow up, we then do Info parsing

Then, we do the Type parsing. Note that to get colors from this, the setcolor routine must be run.

Then, status parsing happens. For shapes, do setshape.

And finally, we check to see if linking must occur, and call the linkup function if it must.

minmaxYear

This function reads in the %Year hash (created by parse) and sets the variables $Maxyear and $Minyear accordingly.

dopos

dopos reads in the nodes given to it as arguments and sets a vertical position for the node accordingly. Useful mostly for dot and vcg output.

linkup

linkup is the routine that creates the @linkfrom, @linkto, and @linkweight arrays. Used mostly by parse.

dump

dump is a rough output format. All it does is sort the nodes and strip comments.

chml

The chml routine sucks in the files, and spits out a bit of CHML (Comp-Hist Markup Language).

info

The info routine parses the data and then, for each node with an Info: field, spits out the node name and its contents.

biblio

This routine is quite similar in operation to the info routine, except that it looks for Reference: fields.

setcolor

The setcolor routine turns types of nodes into colors and stores them in the %Color hash. The rules for translation are below:

hardware becomes blue

OSes are red

languages are green

standards are yellow

companies are cyan

and announcements are gold

setshape

The setshape routine will set shapes for the nodes according to the following status/shape relationship:

released/box

internal/triangle

continual evolution/ellipse

prototype/rhomb

research/triangle

otherwise/box

setweights_vcg

This lovely little function sets up the weights for vcg to use.

vcg

The vcg subroutine is an adapted form of tovcg's ``graph'' routine. The changes are as follows:

it calls dopos, setcolor, and setshape itself, rather than having external functions do that

it prints the surrounding VCG headings

it doesn't seperate the files from each other (yet)

and it takes care of linkage