Please reference the code on my home node for details on what I am doing here.

I am making pretty extensive use of heredocs to fit VRML into scalars. I then take these scalars and pass them to parent scalars. These scalars are called, in the VRML terminology, 'Nodes'. So lets look at this code:

sub makemeanode {
  my $parameter = shift;
  return << "EOR";
node myNode {
  fooParam $parameter
}
EOR
}
[download]

You'd be surprised just how well this works. Let's extrapolate this a little further though.

sub makeMeContainer {
  my $parameter = shift;
  # see, muzakfetch? we're not all so uptight...
  my $child = makemeanode( "DogPoopMonk" );
  return <<"EOR";
node myContainer {
  someParam $parameter
  $child
}
EOR
}
[download]

While this may produce PML (PoopModellingLanguage) correct code, it is also ugly and difficult to read:

node myContainer {
  someParam WhateverWeWerePassed  
  node myNode {
  fooParam DogPoopMonk
}
}
[download]

I am hoping to put this to the monastery as something akin to the HTML::Pretty (or was that CGI::Pretty?) module. I would like to be able to prettify the output of my code (optionally) so that it is easier to read for VRML hackers when they get to reading it. I think probably a regular expression would be able to embody rules like this:

• lines ending in an open curly brace cause lines afterwards to be indented.
• lines ending in a close curly brace reduce the level of indentation by 1.
• nodes with only one line of parameters are moved up to the line of the preceding open curly brace in addition to the closing curly brace provided they fit within 78 characters, like so:

  node myNode { parm thisParm }
  [download]

I think these are acceptable, but I havent ever written VRML by hand, either. These are generally acceptable by perl coders and even some c coders. I leave that up to you. I'm going to work on the guts of the module.

thanks for your help everyone,
dep.

ps. and isnt this more productive than golf? working together on a project? and just as fun?

--
Laziness, Impatience, Hubris, and Generosity.

---

---

Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!

Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.

Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.

Please read these before you post! —

• How do I compose an effective node title?
• How do I post a question effectively?
• Markup in the Monastery

Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:

a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr

You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)

	For:		Use:
	&		&
	<		&lt;
	>		&gt;
	[		&#91;
	]		&#93;

Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?

See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.