Re: 4go/4gi format ?

Hi all, Thanks to those that replied to my post concerning my request for info on the 4go file format for the purpose of making an smart linker. Several people replied suggesting that Makefiles were a reasonable way of tackling the problem without going to the effort of producing an smart linker. Other people went a bit further by recommending I look at the way the FourGen CASE tools handle the problem, which seems to be using shell scripts to extract function definitions and calls from the source code to automatically generate the Makefiles. I am currently doing this using perl scripts ie. automatically generating source depenencies into Makefiles. (Gotta love that perl!). However I would still like to be able to use a single (or several) library archive[s] instead of specifying every single dependency. An example of the problem this solution would address is when an existing base function calls a new function in a separate module. In this situation, currently we need to regenerate all the Makefiles in the system so that they can pick up the new dependancy. On the other hand, using library archives and an smart linker, nothing at all needs to be done - it just works. Ok, so regenerating the Makefiles isn't a major hassle, but it is a minor one - and I'm trying to reduce my workload as much as possible. I'm the project overseer/system admin and the 4GL programmers hassle me when anything untoward happens. My ultimate goal is to have the system running smoothly and the programmers productive and happy without me doing anything at all except reading news, drinking coffee, building fun things like smart linkers etc. There are other considerations also: eg. I'm dreading the day that all the modules with pathnames exceed the maximum length of a shell command. Then there's the aesthetic appreciation - the scripts I have are kind of long and complex and would be greatly simplified by the use of a smart linker. Come to think of it, this is not only an aesthetic argument but one of maintenance also - if I get hit by a tram (we have trams here in Melbourne), the next system admin would probably be cursing me for my scripts. So the request still stands - any info out there on the 4go file format ? -- Li-Chuan Dunlop -- s925095@minyos.xx.rmit.edu.au