===================================== Package "Locations" Version 1.0 ===================================== for Perl version 5.000 and higher Copyright (c) 1997 by Steffen Beyer. All rights reserved. This package is free software; you can redistribute and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself. What does it do: ---------------- Locations - magical spots in your output files "Locations" free you from the need to write output files in rigidly sequential order. They allow you to define insertion points in output files (while you are still writing to them!) which you can fill in later. You can also generate data once in your program and use it several times at different places in your output files using this class, while the data is stored in memory only once. Think of "Locations" as folders (or drawers) containing papers in a sequential order, most of which contain printable text or data, while some may contain the name of another folder (or drawer). When dumping a location to a file, the papers contained in it are printed in their stored order. When a paper containing the name of another location is encountered, the contents of that location are processed before continuing to print the remaining papers of the current location. And so forth, in a recursive descent. Note that you may create as many locations with as many embedded locations, as many nesting levels deep as your available memory will permit. Not even Clodsahamp's multidimensionally expanded tree house (see Alan Dean Foster's fantasy novel "Spellsinger" for more details!) can compare with this! :-) Installation: ------------- Simply install this module using the following commands: % perl Makefile.PL % make % make install Documentation: -------------- To see the module's documentation, use the command "man Locations" thereafter. Credits: -------- Many thanks go to Gero Scholz (now at the Dresdner Bank in Frankfurt, Germany) for writing the "ProMAC" macro processor (some sort of a precursor to Perl in spirit!) and implementing the concept of "locations" there, which inspired me to write this Perl module! Author's note: -------------- I hope you will find this module benefitful! Share and enjoy! Yours, -- Steffen Beyer http://sb.fluomedia.org/ "There is enough for the need of everyone in this world, but not for the greed of everyone." - Mahatma Gandhi