mkstr(1) [bsd man page]

MKSTR(1)						      General Commands Manual							  MKSTR(1)

NAME

       mkstr - create an error message file by massaging C source

SYNOPSIS

       mkstr [ - ] messagefile prefix file ...

DESCRIPTION

       Mkstr  is  used	to  create  files  of error messages.  Its use can make programs with large numbers of error diagnostics much smaller, and
       reduce system overhead in running the program as the error messages do not have to be constantly swapped in and out.

       Mkstr will process each of the specified files, placing a massaged version of the input file in a file whose name consists of the specified
       prefix and the original name.  A typical usage of mkstr would be

	    mkstr pistrings xx *.c

       This  command  would  cause  all the error messages from the C source files in the current directory to be placed in the file pistrings and
       processed copies of the source for these files to be placed in files whose names are prefixed with xx.

       To process the error messages in the source to the message file mkstr keys on the string `error("' in  the  input  stream.   Each  time	it
       occurs,	the  C	string	starting  at the `"' is placed in the message file followed by a null character and a new-line character; the null
       character terminates the message so it can be easily used when retrieved, the new-line character makes it  possible  to	sensibly  cat  the
       error  message file to see its contents.  The massaged copy of the input file then contains a lseek pointer into the file which can be used
       to retrieve the message, i.e.:

	      char efilname[] =  "/usr/share/pascal/pi_strings";
	      int  efil = -1;

	      error(a1, a2, a3, a4)
	      {
		   char buf[256];

		   if (efil < 0) {
			efil = open(efilname, 0);
			if (efil < 0) {
	      oops:
			     perror(efilname);
			     exit(1);
			}
		   }
		   if (lseek(efil, (long) a1, 0) || read(efil, buf, 256) <= 0)
			goto oops;
		   printf(buf, a2, a3, a4);
	      }

       The optional - causes the error messages to be placed at the end of the specified message file for recompiling part of a large mkstred pro-
       gram.

SEE ALSO

       lseek(2), xstr(1)

3rd Berkeley Distribution					 October 22, 1996							  MKSTR(1)

XSTR(1) 						    BSD General Commands Manual 						   XSTR(1)

NAME

     xstr -- extract strings from C programs to implement shared strings

SYNOPSIS

     xstr [-cv] [-] [file ...]

DESCRIPTION

     The xstr utility maintains a file strings into which strings in component parts of a large program are hashed.  These strings are replaced
     with references to this common area.  This serves to implement shared constant strings, most useful if they are also read-only.

     The following options are available:

     -	     Read from the standard input.

     -c      Extract the strings from the C source file or the standard input (-), replacing string references by expressions of the form
	     (&xstr[number]) for some number.  An appropriate declaration of xstr is prepended to the file.  The resulting C text is placed in the
	     file x.c, to then be compiled.  The strings from this file are placed in the strings data base if they are not there already.
	     Repeated strings and strings which are suffixes of existing strings do not cause changes to the data base.

     -v      Verbose mode.

     After all components of a large program have been compiled a file xs.c declaring the common xstr space can be created by a command of the
     form

	   xstr

     The file xs.c should then be compiled and loaded with the rest of the program.  If possible, the array can be made read-only (shared) saving
     space and swap overhead.

     The xstr utility can also be used on a single file.  A command

	   xstr name

     creates files x.c and xs.c as before, without using or affecting any strings file in the same directory.

     It may be useful to run xstr after the C preprocessor if any macro definitions yield strings or if there is conditional code which contains
     strings which may not, in fact, be needed.  An appropriate command sequence for running xstr after the C preprocessor is:

	   cc -E name.c | xstr -c -
	   cc -c x.c
	   mv x.o name.o

     The xstr utility does not touch the file strings unless new items are added, thus make(1) can avoid remaking xs.o unless truly necessary.

FILES

     strings   data base of strings
     x.c       massaged C source
     xs.c      C source for definition of array xstr
     /tmp/xs*  temporary file when ``xstr name'' does not touch strings

SEE ALSO

     mkstr(1)

HISTORY

     The xstr command appeared in 3.0BSD.

BUGS

     If a string is a suffix of another string in the data base, but the shorter string is seen first by xstr both strings will be placed in the
     data base, when just placing the longer one there will do.

BSD
								 December 30, 1993							       BSD