BPP Q&A

[1000101]

Ok, Agamemnus asked me a couple questions about BPP (BASIC Pre-Parser). Instead of answering those questions (;P) I'll just explain what BPP is/does and that should in itself answer most questions.

Q1. What is BPP?
A1. BPP is a pre-parser.

Q2. What is a pre-parser?
A2. A pre-parser is a program which reads the source of a program and does certain tasks based on the meta-statements defined in it. These tasks range from telling how to compile to what to compile or even adding macros (not yet implemented).

Q3. Sounds interesting, why would I use it?
A3. Say you have a large program written in several languages and made up of several libraries/object modules scattered across several harddrives or even a network. BPP takes your source and from the meta-statements there-in, it compiles all of the source code, links it and generates the logs/etc based on it. This means you only have to type one simple statement at the command prompt and the pre-parser does all the work.

Q4. Ok, can you give me an example?
A4. Well, download bpp.rar from http://uregina.ca/~cowles1e/bpp/ and look at the bpp.bas source module. When I wrote bpp, I first compiled it manually with no special switches. Once I had that, I then ran BPP.BAS through the first compiled version to take advantage of everything that would be useful to that project. When I first compiled it I did not exclude COM port communications or similar such things. I was only interested in getting it to the point of running so I would let it do the work of setting the switches for the compiler and linker as well as remove unneeded modules.

If you have any other questions that are not covered here (I'm sure there will be lots) or that is not explained sufficiently in bpp.txt on the website, then ask away.

httyp://uregina.ca/~cowles1e/bpp/

[Plasma]

eh...looks like qbmcx with more metacommands

[1000101]

Well, the fact that they are both pre-parsers would lead you to that assumption, however, BPP supports and does more then QBMCX. I should have macros finished the next "weekend" (fri/sat is my weekend).

[toonski84]

Cool beans, Eric, great to see you around again. Just out of curiosity, does this mean FARQB is officially canned (or put off for a long, long time?)

[Plasma]

It does more than version 1.0. You ain't seen 2.0 yet, buddy.

[Agamemnus]

Instead of competition, I say there should be consolidation.

[1000101]

Toon: FARQB was sorta canned. If people want to still use it then I'll finish v4, however, I would have thought most people would be using something better by now.

Plaz: Fair enough

Ag: Actually, I wrote BPP for my own use withou even knowledge of QBMCX's existance until I was asking a couple people to look at it and one pointed it out to me. So, at thier request I added some things QBMCX has (run before, after, after compile, befoe link, etc).