PLEASE READ THE PLATFORM SPECIFIC INSTRUCTIONS BELOW BEFORE DOWNLOADING!!!
Programs for ra are built from a small set of primitive control statements and a small set of operations. Although they contain no explicit types they are based on two primitive types, string and number, and a high order type, table.
When called with the -d option ra includes commands for starting and stopping program execution and examining program state.
The above is an excerpt from the document docra.
There's just a single executable file, available for the Mac and the Windows PC.
Although if running on Windows, without Cygwin, a dll is required, cygwin1.dll. More details appear below.
The executable is command line based, entering ra from the shell or command prompt without arguments will display help, in addition the document docra serves as a programmer's guide.
For the Mac the executable is mac/ra.
When running on a Windows PC, one can run using the Cygwin Terminal, bash for example, or just plain Windows using a command prompt. The executables are cyg/ra and win/ra.exe respectively.
An optional utility program pp on Mac and Cygwin, or pp.exe on Windows, for pretty printing to standard out character separated fields read from standard in, particularly fixed precision numeric or string fields in columns, is also included. Enter 'pp +h' on the command line for further information, after downloading it. This program is very useful for viewing data while data processing using character separated data. It is not currently available for Windows without Cygwin, see platform notes below for version numbers.
To uninstall on any platform, simply remove the executable. If a path variable has been modified, as described below, undo the modifications. For Windows without Cygwin remove the dll, if appropriate. If a new directory was created for the executable, remove it. For Mac or Cygwin if a .bashrc or startup file was modified, unmodify it, remove an alias using unalias if necessary. If the optional pretty printing program pp was installed remove it, remove an alias for it if created.
Documentation:
All files are plain ASCII text.
docra.txt - is a programmer's guide.
apidoc.txt - documents all built-in functions, the Application Programming Interface.
conceptual.txt - lists the routines from apidoc arranged conceptually.
xdbgdoc.txt - is an example of an interactive session.
iMac Notes:
mac/ra - is the executable for the Mac. When downloaded from Sourceforge with Safari the file will be renamed ra.dms, you will have to rename it ra, from the Terminal:
cd ~/Downloads
mv ra.dms ra
And then change the permissions to make it executable:
chmod 755 ra
Then, placing it in your current directory will do. To avoid entering the full path name of the command, use an alias or modify the path variable to include the directory where it resides. Assume /Users/fred/bin/ contains the ra executable.
alias:
alias ra=/Users/fred/bin/ra
will do. Placing the alias in your .bashrc or .profile, or other suitable shell startup file averts the need to retype it.
OR
path:
export PATH=$PATH:/Users/fred/bin
works for the current shell and subshells.
or simply:
PATH=$PATH:/Users/fred/bin
works for the current shell.
Placing the export in your .bashrc or .profile, or other suitable shell startup file averts the need to retype it for new sessions and subshells.
Placing the optional utility program, pp, in /Users/fred/bin then either entering 'alias pp=/Users/fred/bin/pp' or modifying the path as above will do.
Windows PC Notes:
Windows Without Cygwin:
win/ra.exe - is the executable on the a Windows PC.
win/cygwin1.dll - is needed on a Windows PC, if you are not using Cygwin. The Cygwin website is www.cygwin.com.
For Windows without Cygwin both the dll and executable can be placed in your current directory or \windows directory. First check for files with the same names and backup as appropriate. They can also be placed in a separate directory, say c:\radir, and the PATH variable can be modified to include that directory in order to avoid typing the full path name for the command and to ensure that the dll is found by the system.
From the Windows command prompt enter:
set PATH=%PATH%;c:\radir;
for a one time session, from the command prompt. To permanently set the Path variable, one consistent way to do so seems to be by first searching for "Control Panel" in the search box next to the start button, or in the search box within Settings itself, then:
Control Panel -> System -> Advanced system settings -> Environment Variables ... -> System Variables (the bottom set of variables) -> then editing the path to include c:\radir; by selecting Path then clicking the edit button and adding c:\radir following the other directories, by clicking below the last entry and typing it in.
The optional utility program pp.exe is not currently supported for Windows without Cygwin. Cygwin version 3.1.2(0.340/5/3), in general, is not currently supported, win/cygwin1.dll is an older version of the dll. Check here for updates.
Windows With Cygwin:
cyg/ra - is the executable on the a Windows PC under Cygwin.
Under Cygwin copying the executable to the current directory is sufficient. These instructions assume you have a shell installed, "Cygwin64 Terminal", bash will do. The homepage for Cygwin is www.cygwin.com. In order to avoid typing the full path for the command use an alias or modify the path variable to include the directory where it resides.
Assume /home/fred/bin/ contains the ra executable.
alias:
alias ra=/home/fred/bin/ra
will do. Placing the alias in your .bashrc or .profile, or other suitable shell startup file averts the need to retype it.
OR
path:
export PATH=$PATH:/home/fred/bin
works for the current shell and subshells.
or simply:
PATH=$PATH:/home/fred/bin
works for the current shell.
Placing the export in your .bashrc or .profile, or other suitable shell startup file averts the need to retype it for new sessions and subshells.
Incidentally, the Windows exe is compatible with Cygwin, but not visa versa. The Cygwin executable will not generally work with Windows without a Cygwin shell installed, simply due to file system conventions, although it will run programs stored in files, as opposed to passed directly on the command line, without -d, that is non-interactively, if the cygwin1.dll is present.
Purchasing:
$100.00
or
$9.95 - Minors and special needs. Minors please include age.
Free to download.
Make checks payable to: Ben Abraham
mail:
Ben Abraham
27 Whitlaw Lane
Chappaqua, NY 10514-1005
USA
As part of the Cygwin agreement, source inquiries are welcome, bentabraham@yahoo.com. Although source is planned, at present it is not supported.
