README
1The slrn documentation in this directory is written in text-macro
2format. This format was invented by me and currently can only be
3processed by the jed text editor and the tm2txt program that is
4distributed with the S-Lang library. In fact, ../slrnfuns.txt was
5created from slrnfuns.tm via tm2txt. The jed editor converts the .tm
6source to SGML and from there it is converted to other formats, e.g.,
7html, via SGML-Tools.
8
9The advantage of text-macro over SGML is that I believe it is much
10easier to write in text-macro than in raw SGML. In fact, the text-macro
11source is much easier to comprehend than SGML. For example, the
12\function macro allows the text-macro source to look like
13
14 \function{bla bla}
15 .
16 .
17 \done
18
19whereas the equivalent SGML source would look like:
20
21 <sect><bf>bla bla</bf><label id="bla bla"><p><descrip>
22 .
23 .
24 </descrip><p>
25
26Of course this is possible because \function is a macro defined via
27
28 #d function#1 <sect><bf>$1</bf>\label{$1}}<descrip>
29
30(Note that `\label' is another macro) Now suppose that I wanted the
31section to appear in some other font, e.g., <tt>. Then it is only
32necessary to make the change to the function macro:
33
34 #d function#1 <sect><tt>$1</tt>\label{$1}}<descrip>
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