[m-dev.] Contribution: Pretty Printing Library

[Mark Anthony BROWN]

Ralph Becket writes:
> 
> 
> > 	- Tab size.
> 
> Hmm.  I've recently (following discussion on this list) adopted the
> convention of using four space tabs for code layout.  Since Mercury's
> syntax does tend to lead to long lines of text, this often means one
> can avoid having to break a goal over more than one line.
> 
> I can redo it all using standard eight space tabs, but is it really
> necessary?  The guidelines do say that ``highly intended code which 
> may be indented at 4 spaces per level of indentation.''
> 

Well, the interface is not highly indented---it doesn't go beyond
one level---and it is the interface I am mainly concerned about,
since the manual is generated from it.  It's not necessary to redo
the whole thing, but I'd prefer you to change the indentation
in the interface to 8 spaces.

> > 	- The dividing lines (mostly) are quite a bit shorter in
> > 	  the library modules.
> 
> I've just had a quick look through some of the library modules and
> a 79 column dividing line seems to be the norm (mine are 80).  Is
> this a problem?

Sorry, you are right.  I looked through the _generated_ html and noticed
that they were consistently shorter.  But it turns out that in processing
the texi (the code is in doc/Mmakefile), lines matching '^%----*----% *$'
are replaced with a fixed dividing line---they aren't shorter in the
source code.  So you needn't worry about the length so much.  You
will need to remove the spaces between the %'s and -'s, though, so it
matches the pattern.

> 
> > 	- Anything else you notice from the coding standards document.
> 
> I use `if then else' rather than `-> ;' and `not' rather than `\+',
> but I take it this is okay?
> 

That's fine by me.

Cheers,
Mark.
-- 
Mark Brown, PhD student            )O+  |  "Another of Fortran's breakthroughs
(m.brown at cs.mu.oz.au)                   |  was the GOTO statement, which was...
Dept. of Computer Science and Software  |  uniquely simple and understandable"
Engineering, University of Melbourne    |              -- IEEE, 1994
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
mercury-developers mailing list
Post messages to:       mercury-developers at cs.mu.oz.au
Administrative Queries: owner-mercury-developers at cs.mu.oz.au
Subscriptions:          mercury-developers-request at cs.mu.oz.au
--------------------------------------------------------------------------