Text::EP3 1.10

EP3 Perl module is the Extensible Perl PreProcessor.

SYNOPSIS

# Use options and files from command-line
use Text::EP3;
[use Text::EP3::{Extension}] # Language Specific Modules
# create the PreProcessor object
my $preprocessor = new Text::EP3 file;
# do the preprocessing, using command-line options from @ARGV
$preprocessor->ep3_execute;

# Set options and files from the Perl script
use Text::EP3;
[use Text::EP3::{Extension}] # Language Specific Modules
# create the PreProcessor object
my $preprocessor = new Text::EP3 file;
# configure the PreProcessor object (optional)
$preprocessor->ep3_output_file([$filename]);
$preprocessor->ep3_modules([@modules]);
$preprocessor->ep3_includes([@include_directories]);
$preprocessor->ep3_reset;
$preprocessor->ep3_start_comment([$string]);
$preprocessor->ep3_end_comment([$string]);
$preprocessor->ep3_line_comment([$string]);
$preprocessor->ep3_delimiter([$string]);
$preprocessor->ep3_gen_depend_list([$value]);
$preprocessor->ep3_keep_comments([$value]);
$preprocessor->ep3_protect_comments([$value]);
$preprocessor->ep3_defines($string1=$string2);
# do the preprocessing
$preprocessor->ep3_process([$filename, [$condition]]);

EP3 is a Perl5 program that preprocesses STDIN or some set of input files and produces an output file. EP3 only works on input files and produces output files. It seems to me that if you want to preprocess arrays or somesuch, you should be using perl. EP3 was first developed to provide a flexible preprocessor for the Verilog hardware description language.

Verilog presents some problems that were not easily solved by using cpp or m4. I wanted to be able to use a normal preprocessor, but extend its functionality. So I wrote EP3 - the Extensible Perl PreProcessor. The main difference between EP3 and other preprocessors is its built-in extensibility. Every directive in EP3 is really a method defined in EP3, one of its submodules, or embedded in the file that is being processed. By linking the directive name to the associated methods, other methods could be added, thus extending the preprocessor.