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NAME

       aegis - meta-data file format

DESCRIPTION

       The files used by the aegis program all have the same format.  Some of
       the files used by aegis are created and maintained by humans, and some
       are created an maintained by aegis itself.  The various manual entries
       say which is which.

LEXICAL CONSIDERATIONS

       Names are any C identifier.  Comments are C-style comments (or C++ or
       shell).  Numbers are decimal, octal or hexadecimal, as for C constants.
       Whitespace (spaces, tabs and newlines) are ignored except in strings or
       as they serve to separate tokens.

       Strings are C-style strings, and similar to C, sequential string
       constants are silently catenated together.

       In addition, there is a style of @string@ which use at-signs (@) for
       quoting.  Unlike the C style of string, newlines are allowed within
       these strings.  To get an at-sign in such a string, double the at-sign.
       There is no other escape mechanism available.

GRAMMAR

       The format of all aegis files is described by a yacc (1) grammar.
              %%
              file
                      : field_list
                      ;
       A file contains a field list.
              field_list
                      : /* empty */
                      | field_list field
                      ;
       A field list is zero or more fields.
              field
                      : NAME ’=’ value ’;’
                      ;
       A field is set by giving a name and a value.
              value
                      : NAME
                      | INTEGER
                      | STRING
                      | structure
                      | list
                      ;
       A value may be a member of an enumeration (NAME), or an integer
       constant, or a literal string.  More complex values may be constructed
       from these simple values.
              structure
                      : ’{’ field_list ’}’
                      ;
       A structure is a grouped list of fields.
              list
                      : ’[’ list_body ’]’
                      ;
              list_body
                      : /* empty */
                      | value_list
                      | value_list ’,’
                      ;
              value_list
                      : value
                      | value_list ’,’ value
       A list is a sequential list of values separated by commas.  It may be
       empty, or it may have a trailing comma.

SEMANTICS

       The types of the values must match those in the definition of the file.
       See the relevant man pages for more information.

       Files which are rewritten by aegis will lose any comments placed in
       them.  When time fields are emitted by aegis they are usually followed
       by a human readable date in a comment.

SEE ALSO

       aegis(1)
               a project change supervisor

       aecattr(5)
               change attribute file format

       aecstate(5)
               change state file format

       aedir(5)
               directory structures

       aegstate(5)
               aegis state file

       aepattr(5)
               project attribute file format

       aepconf(5)
               project configuration file format

       aepstate(5)
               project state file format

       aesub(5)
               available command substitutions

       aeuconf(5)
               user configuration file format

       aeustate(5)
               user state file format

COPYRIGHT

       aegis version 4.24.3.D001
       Copyright (C) 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999,
       2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 Peter
       Miller

       The aegis program comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details use
       the ’aegis -VERSion License’ command.  This is free software and you
       are welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions; for details
       use the ’aegis -VERSion License’ command.

AUTHOR

       Peter Miller   E-Mail:   millerp@canb.auug.org.au
       /\/\*             WWW:   http://www.canb.auug.org.au/~millerp/