Make_rename_se

Description

Motivation

All file systems have a limited length for filenames. Descriptive Eiffel class names often exceed such limits. For that, SmallEiffel allows to provide a file "rename.se", in which every line contains the real (short) name of the file for a certain class. For example:

yy_compressed_scanner_skeleton.e yy_compressed_scanner_skelet.e
yy_interactive_scanner_skeleton.e yy_interactive_scanner_skele.e

Requirements

`Make_rename_se' assumes that you have a ZIP archive, where the classes are stored with their long names. Furthermore, `unzip' available from the Info-ZIP homepage must be within the search path.

Both `make_rename_se' and `unzip' should work on all systems supported by SmallEiffel. However, output redirection has to be supported by the OS.

Compiling

As this is a developer tool without any use for sensible human beings, you have to compile it yourself. Simply type

compile -boost -clean make_rename_se

This should create an optimized version.

Usage

Possible command line options are:

• archive.zip - path of the ZIP archive containing the classes
• length number - maximum length of filenames (>2)
• amiga - same as "length 30"
• mac - same as "length 31"
• dos - same as "length 10"
• quiet - act quietly

Order and case of option names don't matter. And no silly "-", "--" or "/" prefix is needed.

If you don't specify a length, an internal default with a ridiculously low value is used, which guarantees pretty useless filenames. So you better specify one.

Example

Usage is simple. All you have to know is the name of the ZIP archive and the maximum length of filenames on your system.

Here is an example on how to create "rename.se" files for the popular Gobo library under AmigaOS.

1. Create a directory to avoid clutter

   makedir gobo
   cd gobo

2. Download the ZIP archive containing Gobo and copy it to the current directory. After that, you should have a file called "gobo15.zip" (or something similar, depending on the current version).
3. Extract the archive, ignoring the fact that some filenames will be cut

   unzip gobo15.zip

   Now the directory tree of gobo has been created. Furthermore, you can be sure that `unzip' is in the search path. If it didn't work out, get `unzip' as mentioned above.
4. Figure out the maximum length of filenames for Eiffel classes:
   • AmigaOS: 30
   • MacOS: 31
   • MS-DOS: 10 (because two characters are unused in the extension)
5. Start `make_rename_se':

   make_rename_se length 30 gobo15.zip

   Alternatively, you could also have typed

   make_rename_se amiga gobo15.zip

After pressing RETURN, you see what is going on. Basically, the tool first creates a listing of the ZIP file contents to find out the real, possibly too long, names of the classes. It then analyzes directories in the archive and generates unique short names for every class. By doing that it ensures that every file gets a ".e" suffix and does not have the same name as another class in the same directory (which could easily happen if it would just cut the name).

After that, it extracts all classes with too long names and renames them to the unique short name. While doing that, it also generates the "rename.se" for every directory where files had to be renamed.

The output should look something like this:

         unzip -l >t:make_rename_se.tmp "sofa_archive:gobo15.zip"
         read archive list
         analyze
            src/geyacc/
            library/structure/sort/
            library/structure/list/
            library/structure/base/
            library/parse/yacc/
         ...
         rename library/kernel/spec/ve/
            kl_imported_fixed_array_rout.e <- kl_imported_fixed_array_routines.e
            kl_imported_string_buffer_ro.e <- kl_imported_string_buffer_routines.e
            kl_imported_output_stream_ro.e <- kl_imported_output_stream_routines.e
            kl_imported_input_stream_rou.e <- kl_imported_input_stream_routines.e
            kl_imported_fixed_array_type.e
         rename library/kernel/spec/se/
            kl_imported_fixed_array_rout.e <- kl_imported_fixed_array_routines.e
            kl_imported_string_buffer_ro.e <- kl_imported_string_buffer_routines.e
            kl_imported_output_stream_ro.e <- kl_imported_output_stream_routines.e
            kl_imported_input_stream_rou.e <- kl_imported_input_stream_routines.e
            kl_imported_fixed_array_type.e
         ...

Only classes with filenames longer than 30 characters are extracted from the ZIP archive and renamed.

Classes with exactly 30 characters are just extracted, for example "kl_imported_fixed_array_type.e ". This is to make sure that they didn't get lost during the renaming and extracting of all the other classes. Without going too much into detail, file systems behave differently when having to deal with too long names, and this avoids all sorts of trouble.

If a directory contains many ".e" files, but all of them have names shorter or equal than 30 characters, no "rename.se" is created.

Problems

• If you can't run `make_rename_se' on the target OS, you can do the job on a different OS. For example, nobody prevents you from invoking

  make_rename_se dos gobo15.zip

  on a Unix box.
• The syntax "length=30" is not supported. Use "length 30" instead.
• All other files like documentation and executables are not considered by "make_rename_se", so if they have too long filenames, you have to do something else about them.
• Only ZIP archives are supported. This makes sense as the Info-ZIP tools are Open Source and have been ported to almost all systems still in use - and even seem to work on all of them (different to for instance "tar.gz" and ".lha", which usually come with a huge pile of idiosyncracies and implementation problems).

Author

History

• Version 1.0, 8-Oct-1999
  • initial release