Re: [WWdevel] Macro library search path

[Michael G. <ga...@ma...>]

On May 3, 2005, at 9:23 PM, Davide P.Cervone wrote:

> Folks:
>
> On the discussion board at
>
> 	http://webhost.math.rochester.edu/webworkdocs/discuss/msgReader$3244? 
> mode=topic&y=2005&m=4&d=22
>
> a user asks how to add directories that can be searched for macro  
> files by loadMacros().  The current implementation doesn't provide for  
> this, but it would not be hard to do.  One possibility would be to add  
> a variable to global.conf that is an array of directories to be  
> searched (in the order given).   In dangerousMacros around line 260,  
> you would repalce the explicit check of $macroDirectory and  
> $courseScriptsDirectory by a loop through the macro directory array.   
> (The macroDirectory and courseScriptsDirectory variables can then be  
> dropped.)
>
This sounds like an excellent idea.  To expand on it I think something  
similar will need to be done for the "alias" subroutine -- give it a  
list of places to find images, applets and so forth.  The alias  
subroutine is a bit of a mess -- it hasn't been looked at in quite a  
long time.

> I would also like to suggest that loadMacros be able to access  
> subdirectories of the macro directory (not by searching them  
> automatically, but by making explicit references to them).  For  
> example, there are several macro files that defined various Parser  
> contents, and it would be nice to have a "context" subdirectory of the  
> macros directory and then use
>
> 	loadMacros("context/LimitedVector.pl");
>
We should add something like this.  Would using double colons be better  
-- following the perl Module convention?
	loadMacros("context::LimitedVector.pl");


> The curernt loadMacros() will actually do this, but the _init()  
> routine stuff won't work for this.  This can be fixed with a single  
> line in dangerousMacros.  At around line 205, right after
>
> 	my $init_subroutine_name = "_${macro_file_name}_init";
>
> you should add
>
> 	$init_subroutine_name =~ s/[^a-z0-9_]/_/gi;
>
> to convert any '/' to a '_' in the name.  (This also converts any  
> other special characters to underscores, so that in case the file name  
> contains characters that are not legal in a perl subroutine name, they  
> will not cause problems with the _init() routine.  This would be a  
> good thing to do even if you don't like the sub-directory idea.)
>
> What do you think?
>
Both ideas seem good to me.  What do you think of the double colon  
idea?  Do you think the slash is more
straightforward?

Take care,

Mike

> Davide
>
>
>
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