Re: [Refdb-devel] refdbc -C addref & stdin

[Michael S. <sm...@xm...>]

Markus Hoenicka <mar...@mh...> writes:

> Bruce D'Arcus writes:
>  > 
>  > I'm not getting the first error anymore, but I am still getting the 
>  > second (the "data read" error).
>  > 
> 
> This essentially means that refdbc can't read from stdin. There's a
> couple of things to check:
> 
> 1) make sure that the commands run by refdb-menu do work on the
>    command line. If not, it's probably a platform issue.
> 
> 2) try adding the -f stdin switch to the appropriate code in
>    refdb-menu.el
> 
> 3) replace the refdbc call with a different program (maybe 'grep
>    ".*"') to see whether the shell within Emacs correctly pipes the
>    contents of the buffer to stdin of the called program.

I've been able to reproduce this error just by selecting/marking a
reference but not the blank line/newline that precedes it.

I saw a note in the docs that says all RIS files must begin with a
newline; seems like that's also true of any RIS data sent to refdbc.

Markus, would it be possible to make refdbc liberal in this regard -- to
process data for stdin even if it doesn't begin with a newline?

Perhaps it could just quietly and automatically add a newline to the
beginning of any data it receives. I know that would mean that if the
user had actually sent data that began with a newline, there'd be an
extra one. Would that break anything? If so, maybe refdbc could check to
see if there was a newline, and only add one if there isn't one already.

  --Mike