Very Computer

        I have been using cpp for some real ugly hacks and basically
now realize why the man pages for it state that it wasn't intended
for anything but a C pre-processor.

        Somehow I learned about the existence of the m4 macro
processor, and this looks more along the lines of what I want,
but I cannot glean a heck of a lot from its man page.

        Could any kind soul please send a short example of what
m4 can be made to do, or if there are any simple docs/refs on it,
I would appreciate those, too.  Email only, unless this would be
of general interest.

                                Thanks,
                                -russ.

--

   Founder of the People's Popular Front for Revolutionary Darwinism
                     Parade says, "Evolution NOW!"

   [...] but I cannot glean a heck of a lot from [m4] man page.  Could
   any kind soul please send a short example of what m4 can be made to
   do, or if there are any simple docs/refs on it [...]

Hi.  Let me suggest that you ftp GNU m4 from prep.ai.mit.edu, in the
pub/gnu directory, as file m4-1.0.tar.Z.  The documentation is in
Texinfo format, the Info files should be quite readable with any
editor, or printed as is.

Also, if you feel like looking at bigger/hairier examples (and are
familiar with Bourne shell programming), you can take a look at files
acgeneral.m4 and acspecific.m4 from the GNU Autoconf documentation,
which you might get as file autoconf-1.1.tar.Z from the same place.
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