NAME
manilist - report status of files in a source directory
SYNOPSIS
manilist [ -abcdhnptV ] [ -i extension ] [ -f manifest ] [ -p format ]
[ -s string ] [ -w which ] [ -x extension ] [ -C separator ] [ -I
included ] [ -L colsize ] [ -X excluded ] [ files or directories ]
DESCRIPTION
Manilist scans a source directory and produces a report on the status
of each file: whether it is up-to-date or not with respect to
patchlevel.h , if it is missing from MANIFEST.new, and some other
useful information which may be dynamically configured. It can be use
to maintain a MANIFEST.new file, produce a detailed listing and status
of a group of directories, etc... The rich set of options concur to
make manilist a perfect low-level tool.
Under its simplest invocation form at the top level directory of a
package, with no arguments, manilist will scan the MANIFEST.new and
produce a report on the status of each file listed there. Each line
starts with a single character flag which indicates the state of the
file, followed by the name of the file.
What happens in fact is more complex than that. Manilist scans the
MANIFEST.new file and then loops over all the files listed there.
Internally, manilist maintains an inclusion and an exclusion list, both
specifying extensions for files. For instance, the inclusion list could
be (’.c’, ’.h’) and the exclusion (’.o’, ’,v’) so that C sources are
included and object or RCS files excluded. By default, all files but
those excluded are used. Some other selections may be applied at this
stage, as will be explained later on. For those files which pass this
selection process, a report is issued according to a report format,
which by default is "A:%c %n". The letter A (or anything before the
initial ’:’ character is the file selection specification we’ve been
talking about. The remaining is the formatting, a string which is
printed as-is, modulo some escape sequences. It so happens that %c is
the character flag and %n is the name of the current file.
Generally speaking, manilist should be regarded as a tool which emits
configurable reports on a set of files, selectively picking them among
a list or by directly scanning the directories to see what’s out
there...
By specifying a set of directories or files as arguments on the command
line, you restrict the scanning area, limiting to reports concerning
those files or directories. If you do not specify any, manilist
restricts its report to the current directory and its subdirectories,
unless the -t option is given.
OPTIONS
Manilist recognizes the following options:
-a Make a report for all the files, regardless of what is
specified by the included and excluded suffix lists.
-b Assume current directory is the base (root) of the
package tree. When this option is not specified,
manilist will look for a .package file to indicate the
root directory of the package (also called the top) and
complain if it does not find it.
-c Check files against those listed in MANIFEST.new (or
whatever file specified via the -f option) and report
discrepancies via the %c macro.
-d Dump included and excluded suffix lists on stderr,
extensions being space separated. A good way to know the
default lists is to run: manilist -f /dev/null -bd.
-f manifest Specify an alternate manifest file, the default being to
use MANIFEST.new.
-h Print the usage help message and exit.
-i extensions Add new extensions to the included suffix list. The
extensions argument must list the suffixes separated by
spaces, as in -i .ph .pl to add both .ph and .pl to
the existing suffixes. Note that the argument needs to
be quoted to protect spaces against shell
interpretation.
-n Do not use any manifest file. Rather scan the
directories and act as with all the files there were
already listed in a manifest.
-p format Set the new printing format, which has the form
selection:string, with selection being a list of single
letters specifying which files from the manifest are to
be used for reports, and string being a message to print
as report, with some macro substitutions. It is also
possible to have column formatting by specifying a ’|’
inside the string to delimit the different columns you
wish to see. See also -C and -L for more formatting
parameters.
-s string Specify the string part of the printing format (see -p
for a general description of the format). Available
macros are listed further down the manual page.
-t Start from the top directory (the root directory of the
distribution) regardless of the current directory. There
must be a .package file to indicate what the top
directory is.
-w selection Specifiy the selection part of the printing format.
Available selections will be discussed later.
-x extensions Add new extensions to the excluded suffix list. The
extensions argument must list the suffixes separated by
spaces, as in -x .s .p to add both .s and .p to the
existing list. Note that the argument needs to be quoted
to protect spaces against shell interpretation.
-C separator Give the column separator, which is to be used in place
of the ’|’ character in the report format string. By
default, it is a single space.
-I included Specify a new list of suffixes to be included in the
reports. This overrides the original default list
(whereas -i is used to add suffixes to the list).
Suffixes must be space separated.
-L colsize When using column formatting (the ’|’ character being
used to denote columns), this option may be used to
specify the maximum column width, separating each width
by a single ’,’. Leaving a width unspecified does not
impose any limit on its width. For instance, if the
format string is %n|%d|%t, one could limit the middle
column (descriptions from MANIFEST.new) to 40 characters
and the name column (first one) to 15 characters,
leaving the last one with no imposed limits, by using -L
15,40,.
-V Print version number and exit.
-X excluded Specify a new list of suffixes to be excluded in the
reports. This overrides the original default list
(whereas -x is used to add suffixes to the list).
Suffixes must be space separated.
USING FORMATS
The flexibility of manilist is brought by its use of a dynamic
formatting string for providing its reports. It is possible to specify
a format via the -p option or just parts of it: the text string via -s
and the file selection with -w.
File Selection
The leading part of the formatting string tells manilist which files
you wish to see in the final report. Available selectors are:
A All the files but the excluded ones (i.e. those files whose suffix
is listed in the exclusion list). This is the default action.
a All the files included and/or excluded (shortcut for ix). Note
that files which are neither included nor excluded will not appear
in the report.
d Report only for directories.
f Report only for files.
i Only included files are listed.
m Only those files or directories found in the manifest are listed.
n Only those files or directories not found in the manifest are
listed.
x Only excluded files are listed.
When you specify more than one letter, the resulting report depends on
the nature of the selection. For d, f, m and n, a logical union is
performed. This means specifying fd or mn is the same as not specifying
anything, but it’s less efficient since manilist is forced to perform
the checks it would otherwise bypass. The i and x selectors are
special: by default, all the files not excluded are reported.
Specifying x also asks for excluded files. Specifying i restricts the
report to the included files. Using both at the same time (ix) will
force a report for files which are included or excluded.
Macro Substitution
The string part of the report format can make use of the following
macros:
%c A character coding the status of the file.
%d Description from the manifest file, if any.
%n Name of the file (its path from the top directory).
%s Size of the file, in bytes.
%t Time stamp of the last modification.
File Status
The %c macro, giving a single character coding the file status, can
expand into one of the following.
. The file is up to date (not newer than patchlevel.h).
- The file is present in the manifest but is missing.
> The file has been modified since last patch (newer than
patchlevel.h).
+ The file exists but is not listed in the manifest.
o The file exists but is not listed in the manifest and is older
than patchlevel.h
x The file is listed in the manifest and exists, but has been
excluded. Naturally, this will appear in the report only if the x
selector is given in the report format.
? The file is listed in the manifest, does not exist, and was
excluded.
EXAMPLES
The command
manilist -ct -p ni:%n
will list all the source files from your distribution which are not
listed in your MANIFEST.new file. Note that this includes only "source"
files, that is to say files whose extension is listed in the inclusion
list. If you do not wish this restriction, replace the formatting
string with n:%n (only the excluded files will not appear).
To build an initial MANIFEST file, use:
manilist -n -p Af:%n > MANIFEST
from the top directory. You will eventually want to fill in
descriptions for each file listed in the manifest.
FILES
MANIFEST.new Default manifest file, listing files and giving a
small description for each of them.
AUTHOR
Raphael Manfredi <ram@hptnos02.grenoble.hp.com>
SEE ALSO
manifake(1), makedist(1), pat(1).
ram