I was tired of searching for syntax errors in INPUT definitions and of counting braces and curly braces. So I have written a very simple, quick&dirty forms generator. It reads a very simple input and generates the INPUT code.
Note: This is only tested for my personal needs. So far, this means only basic datatypes, drop-down boxes with alpha values and checkboxes.
As I am a pure linux user, I did this in perl (feel free to rewrite it in your language of choice).
An example input file (form.hpfrm) is included. Some explanations inside.
I will fix bugs if reported here and if I have time.
Have fun.
For tar users & linuxees: [
attachment=8846]
UPDATE:
Zip version: [
attachment=8849]
PS: rename formgen_tgz.txt to formgen.tgz and then "
tar xvzf formgen.tgz". You'll get two files: A sample form and the script. Depending on your umask you'll eventually have to "
chmod ug+x crthppfrm.pl"
I'm afraid Windows users won't have a clue what to do with a tarball and won't have the ability to extract the files in one. It's best to upload a zip file.
(11-07-2020 08:34 AM)grsbanks Wrote: [ -> ]I'm afraid Windows users won't have a clue what to do with a tarball and won't have the ability to extract the files in one. It's best to upload a zip file.
The Windows users who have no clue what to do with a tarball would probably have even less of a clue what to do with a Perl script!
(11-07-2020 10:29 AM)ijabbott Wrote: [ -> ] (11-07-2020 08:34 AM)grsbanks Wrote: [ -> ]I'm afraid Windows users won't have a clue what to do with a tarball and won't have the ability to extract the files in one. It's best to upload a zip file.
The Windows users who have no clue what to do with a tarball would probably have even less of a clue what to do with a Perl script!
I had to smile here, always a good way to start the day, thanks for that.
(11-07-2020 08:34 AM)grsbanks Wrote: [ -> ]I'm afraid Windows users won't have a clue what to do with a tarball and won't have the ability to extract the files in one. It's best to upload a zip file.
I agree with ijabbott:
> The Windows users who have no clue what to do
> with a tarball would probably have even less of a clue what to do with a Perl script!
Maybe there two kinds of windows users. Those who have a perl interpreter installed: They will usually know what to do. And those who don't have a perl interpreter: They can simply not run the script. But there is free perl for download on the web.
But though I think that nowadays archivers usually know how to deal with a tgz file even under windows, I have of course made a zip file, see below.
In case that someone might not know how to use it:
- Enter crthppfrm.pl -h gives a short usage string via STDERR:
Usage: crthppfrm.pl < STDIN
.
- this means that one can provide the input by either typing on the keyboard OR by feeding a file to the script. In the latter case the syntax was:
crthppfrm.pl < form.hpfrm
.
- The script produces output on STDOUT, which means, that the code is "printed on the monitor". To write into a file use it like this:
crthppfrm.pl < form.hpfrm > form.ppl
which reads: crthppfrm.pl shall read from form.hpfrm and write to form.ppl
Hope this helps.
[
attachment=8848]
PS: 'crthppfrm' is by the way an abbreviation for '
crea
te
HP Prime
fo
rm'. A tribute to the
command nomenclature of the fantastic AS400/i5 operating system.
...
A note for those who wonder "why didn't he write this in C++, C or java?".
There is a slogan which says "Only perl can parse perl". This is probably true since perl is a very (very!) powerful text processor. I could have done this in Java or C++. Or maybe not. 'not' because it is sometimes not easily possible to do certain things so fast in other programming languages than perl. The script is less than a hundred lines and even simple regex-es can sometimes be a PITA in other languages. Perl is unbeatable in this respect and unbeatable fast to implement.
It took me half an hour to have a 60% solution. It took two hours to get to 80%. It took the afternoon to fix a glitch here and there and to make it at least "postable". No way in C++. I do C++ development for a living. But without a minimum design, you will fail with C++. At least I do. But this costs (too much) time and so I wouldn't have done it at all.
In perl, which is my swiss-army-knife² for such cheapo-tools, you sit down and start to code (known as 'quick&dirty'). You add what is missing and after a while it basically does what you had in mind (and often a bit more).
And here you can read why I didn't do this in Python.