Extract Example Index

This is an index file for some illustrative examples of extract usage. It is not a reference, and pretty much no explanation of the extract functions is given here. This file exists to give a quick impression of the kinds of things extract can do, without taking a lot of time with explanation, or even attempting to be comprehensive. If you want to understand the Extract commands used in these examples, Extract is documented in detail in the Extract User's Guide, available in [html, postscript] forms. The user's guide has additional examples as well.

Extract excels at essentially two functions:

Producing repetitive text (code or otherwise) from a smaller, scripting description
Maintaining related routines out of the same source base

The following examples highlight these functionalities. These examples are essentially pared down versions of files I use everyday. I have reduced their size and complexity for ease of understanding, but this is kind of tricky. Since extract helps you more as things get more complex, this also reduces the persuasive power of the examples. Therefore, these examples represent a compromise between showing off the capabilities of extract, and keeping the examples relatively straightforward.

The available extract examples are:

The Makefile example, showing how complex and repetitive Makefiles can be created and maintained with very little effort. Extract concepts utilized include: procedures, declare, whiledef, multidef and macros.
The C renaming example, which creates a cpp header file which renames C routines so that they may be called from Fortran. Extract concepts utilized include: procedures, multidef, whiledef and macros.
The Fortran77 source maintainence example, which shows how you can use extract to support multiple instances of a given routine coming from the same file, as well as using it to install headers, and so on. Extract concepts utilized include: extract include files, keylines, and macros.

If you are an extract user, and use extract in a way you'd like to share, please send me a URL, so I can add it to the example list here, if appropriate.

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