r4d 0.9.0

R4d (Rad)

R4d is a text oriented macro prosessor made with rust.

NOTE

Is it stable?

I'm currently dog fooding for bug detections, and there might be some undetected bugs. However it doesn't mean that the syntax will change in the future without breaking release. (At least until 2.0)

The reason r4d is not yet in 1.0 is that I want to make sure that followings are solved.

Absence of critical bugs
No more basic macro behaviour(internal logic) changes

Therefore it is quite stable, in terms of non-breakable syntax, but there will be bug fixes and non breaking changes.

Demo

Raw texts

$define(author=Simon Creek)
$define(title=R4d demo)
---
title : $title()
author : $author()
---
My name is $author() and I made r4d to make macros can be used within various
forms of texts. This article was written in $date() $time().

$ifdef(test, This should be only printed when I'm testing not in release)

This is some important table automatically formatted according to environment
variable.

$table($env(TABLE_FORM),\*H1,H2,H3
a,b,c
d,e,f*\)

I'm out of idea and I need some texts, $lipsum(15)

Processed texts

---
title : R4d demo
author : Simon Creek
---
My name is Simon Creek and I made r4d to make macros can be used within various
forms of texts. This article was written in 2021-09-26 21:36:59.


This is some important table automatically formatted according to environment
variable.

|H1|H2|H3|
|-|-|-|
|a|b|c|
|d|e|f|

I'm out of idea and I need some texts, Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore.

Install

You can download binaries in release page

If your platform is not listed, mostly MacOS, directly install from cargo registry.

# Binary features is mandatory or else it is not an executable
cargo install r4d --features binary
# If you need color prompt, then use features "color"
cargo install r4d --features binary,color

Simple usage

Binary

# Read from file and print to stdout 
rad input_file.txt
# Read from standard input and print to file
printf '...text...' | rad -o out_file.txt

Library

use rad::RadError;
use rad::Processor;

let processor = Processor::new()
    .purge(true)
    .greedy(true)
    .write_to_file(Some(PathBuf::from("cache.txt")))?
    .build(); 

processor.from_file(Path::new("input.txt"))?;
processor.print_result()?;

What's a difference between custom macro and basic macros?

Basic macro is a macro like function pointer or closure. While custom macro is a macro that doesn't include complicate logics but only gets expanded according to given rules.

Why the name basic?

Well, it is because basic macro was not configurable at first and given as default macros. But r4d has evolved and even basic macro is configurable and can be disabled, so technically its name doesn't necessarily represents its characteristic properly. Still I'm not sure if I should rename it.

How to debug

Debug

Goal

R4d aims to be a modern alternative to m4 processor, which means

No trivial m4 quotes for macro definition
An explicit rule for macro definition and usage so that de facto underscore rule is not necessary
Easier binding with other programming languages(Rust's c binding)
Enable combination of file stream and stdout
As expressive as current m4 macro processor