Tim, I am about ready to release patch 3. Here is what is new: Started the cleanup of the docs. Cleaned up the map directory. Fixed the Xfractint Makefile so that install would run. Added an uninstall. Fixed Xfractint so that it can be run from an arbitrary directory and still use the directory settings in sstools.ini. Note that the install/uninstall of Xfractint still needs to be done as su. I don't see any way around this. Jonathan
Jonathan Osuch wrote:
Started the cleanup of the docs.
Out of the numerous minor documentation "quirks", here is one that seems to be questionable (and on the Spanky web page as well). Around page 124, under "5.5 Startup Parameters", where it states: COMMENT=[comment1]/[comment2]/[comment3]/[comment4] Inserts comments into PAR files. These comments can include variables that are expanded at the time the PAR file is created. Variables are indicated by $varname$. Underscore characters are expanded to blanks. Underscore characters are expanded to blanks. If you want to include the special characters '$', '_', or '\' in a comment, precede the character with '\'. Should that not be a '/' for the special character that might need to be replaced, instead of a '\' ?? Later, P.N.L. ------------------------------------------------- http://home.att.net/~Paul.N.Lee/PNL_Fractals.html http://www.Nahee.com/Fractals/
Paul,
Around page 124, under "5.5 Startup Parameters", where it states:
COMMENT=[comment1]/[comment2]/[comment3]/[comment4] Inserts comments into PAR files. These comments can include variables that are expanded at the time the PAR file is created. Variables are indicated by $varname$. Underscore characters are expanded to blanks. Underscore characters are expanded to blanks. If you want to include the special characters '$', '_', or '\' in a comment, precede the character with '\'.
Should that not be a '/' for the special character that might need to be replaced, instead of a '\' ??
Using a back-slash is pretty standard to indicate a special character. And, it does work in Fractint. Xfractint ignores everything after the back-slash. The forward-slash is being used to indicate the start of the next comment line, so we can't use it to indicate a special character. I'll look into fixing Xfractint after this patch is released. Thanks for your comments. Jonathan
Jonathan Osuch wrote:
Paul,
Around page 124, under "5.5 Startup Parameters", where it states:
COMMENT=[comment1]/[comment2]/[comment3]/[comment4] Inserts comments into PAR files. These comments can include variables that are expanded at the time the PAR file is created. Variables are indicated by $varname$. Underscore characters are expanded to blanks. If you want to include the special characters '$', '_', or '\' in a comment, precede the character with '\'.
Should that not be a '/' for the special character that might need to be replaced, instead of a '\' ??
Using a back-slash is pretty standard to indicate a special character. And, it does work in Fractint. The forward-slash is being used to indicate the start of the next comment line, so we can't use it to indicate a special character.
So actually, both the forward and backward slashes are "special characters". One is used as a COMMENT delimiter between each line of comments created. And the other is used to indicate that the following character is another special character. And if someone wanted to include either of these slashes into their comment lines they would need to specify the following: COMMENT=\/ ...to get a forward slash without a new comment line. COMMENT=\\ ...to get a backward slash. Which would mean the FractInt Document should specify both types of slashes as special characters??
Xfractint ignores everything after the back-slash. I'll look into fixing Xfractint after this patch is released.
I did not realize XFractInt was not handling this correctly.
Thanks for your comments.
You are more than welcome. :-) Sincerely, P.N.L. ------------------------------------------------- http://home.att.net/~Paul.N.Lee/PNL_Fractals.html http://www.Nahee.com/Fractals/
Paul,
So actually, both the forward and backward slashes are "special characters". One is used as a COMMENT delimiter between each line of comments created. And the other is used to indicate that the following character is another special character.
And if someone wanted to include either of these slashes into their comment lines they would need to specify the following:
COMMENT=\/ ...to get a forward slash without a new comment line. COMMENT=\\ ...to get a backward slash.
Which would mean the FractInt Document should specify both types of slashes as special characters??
I don't know if that would work. The problem is that when Fractint reads a PAR, the double character combination would have to be there or the slash/back-slash would be misinterpreted. The space character having to be represented by an underscore seems to be an enigma. Maybe Tim can shed some light on this.
Xfractint ignores everything after the back-slash. I'll look into fixing Xfractint after this patch is released.
I did not realize XFractInt was not handling this correctly.
I didn't either, until your message prompted me to see what it did. Jonathan
Jonathan Osuch wrote:
I don't know if that would work. The problem is that when Fractint reads a PAR, the double character combination would have to be there or the slash/ back-slash would be misinterpreted.
I have tried several combinations of special and other characters to see what all would happen. The results are interesting and varied. Here are two examples that explain the majority of what will happen. The following produces two lines of comment: COMMENT=_FractInt_$version$.$patch$_\\\\\\$_$\\/_PASSES=t |....,....1....,....2....,....3....,....4 ---|----------------------------------------- 1 | FractInt 2004.3 \\\\\$ 2 | PASSES=t | The following produces four lines of comment: COMMENT=_FractInt_$version$.$patch$_\\\\\\$_$\\/\__\\/_PASSES=t//// |....,....1....,....2....,....3....,....4 ---|----------------------------------------- 1 | FractInt 2004.3 \\\\\$ 2 |_ \ 3 | PASSES=t 4 | | What is odd, when the back-slash is followed by multiple special characters, only the back-slash will be considered regular text until two other special characters are put together. Then only the first one of the other special characters will be shown in the comments.
The space character having to be represented by an underscore seems to be an enigma. Maybe Tim can shed some light on this.
It appears that the parser for the SSTOOLS.INI will treat the space character as the delimiter for the end of the COMMENT parameter, instead of looking for a typical line-feed or carriage-return character. So the underscore has to be used to show a space in an actual comment. Sincerely, P.N.L. ------------------------------------------------- http://home.att.net/~Paul.N.Lee/PNL_Fractals.html http://www.Nahee.com/Fractals/
Paul,
The following produces two lines of comment:
COMMENT=_FractInt_$version$.$patch$_\\\\\\$_$\\/_PASSES=t
|....,....1....,....2....,....3....,....4 ---|----------------------------------------- 1 | FractInt 2004.3 \\\\\$ 2 | PASSES=t |
Because the comment is parsed one character at a time, each time a '\' is encountered, the next character is checked. That is why only five show up. Then, the '$' is displayed followed by a space that you can't see (replace the $_$ with $b$). The next '$' indicates the beginning of a variable, so the code starts looking for the ending '$'. When the '/' is encountered, the variable is discarded and the next comment line started.
What is odd, when the back-slash is followed by multiple special characters, only the back-slash will be considered regular text until two other special characters are put together. Then only the first one of the other special characters will be shown in the comments.
See above.
The space character having to be represented by an underscore seems to be an enigma. Maybe Tim can shed some light on this.
It appears that the parser for the SSTOOLS.INI will treat the space character as the delimiter for the end of the COMMENT parameter, instead of looking for a typical line-feed or carriage-return character. So the underscore has to be used to show a space in an actual comment.
What happens is that the command parser sees spaces as breaks between commands. The command parser processes sstools.ini first and before the comment parser even sees the string, it has been truncated at the first space. Also, the command parser sees the '/' first, and only sends the character up to that point to the comment parser. Bottom line is that we can't easily change the code to allow us to put a space or '/' in a comment= line. The problem I was seeing with Xfractint was due to using the command line to enter the comment line instead of using sstools.ini. It works fine when sstools.ini is used. Jonathan
participants (3)
-
Jonathan Osuch -
Paul N. Lee -
Tim Wegner