Now how do I incorporate this into my tool chain (Makefile)?
%: %.ct
cpp -P $(shell env | sed -e "s/.*/-D_ENV_'&'/") $< > $@
%: %.st
( export __FILE__=$< ; echo "cat <<!" ; cat $< ; echo "!" ) | bash > $@
%: %.mt
rm -f $@.err
m4 -D__FILE__=$< $(shell env | sed -e "s/\([^=]*\)=\(.*\)/-D'_ENV_\\1=\\2'/") $< > $@
if [ -s $@.err ] ; then cat $@.err ; exit 1 ; fi
rm -f $@.err
The shell templates do not have to have any "cat <<" or "!"; this wrapping is added by the Makefile. Of course, you can't have a line consisting of ! in these files; you have to escape such a thing if it occurs.
Additionally, for .ct and .mt files, all environment variables are turned into macros in that language, with their names mapped to the the _ENV_* namespace. For .st and .mt files, the __FILE__ macro is established which expands to the file name (the C preprocessor has this built-in).
I used this in an embedded Linux distro that I build from scratch (targetting MIPS embedded hardware). It was used for generating some of the textual materials in the target file system tree. For instance /etc/hosts was generated from a .st template, and populated using a $(for ...) loop.
Yes, I do Lisp and I do stupid. :)
> Yes, I do Lisp and I do stupid. :)
Why stupid? I think that is straight solutions for simple problems. MyDef is basically the same idea but with complete programming layer to achieve almost anything. I have been using MyDef for all my programming (in all programming languages) for 10 years now, solves all my syntax problems. It doesn't solve language problems therefore I still choose language to suite problems. However it turns out that programming language minus syntax features are much smaller and the remaining criterion often boils down to library availability, dynamic type vs static, or memory management. Syntax differences can be naturally dismissed.
Bravo; it is much more readable than regular Perl.