Re: automate Emacs beautifyer ?

[Kevin Rodgers <ihs_4664@yahoo.com>]

Michael Slass wrote:
 > Kevin Rodgers <ihs_4664@yahoo.com> writes:
 >>for file in *.vhdl; do
 >>  # Long options for readability:
 >>  emacs --batch --visit=$file \
 >>        --funcall=vhdl-beautify-buffer --funcall=save-buffer
 >>  # Short options for brevity:
 >>  # emacs -batch $file -f vhdl-beautify-buffer -f save-buffer
 >>done
 >>
 >>See the "Command Line Arguments" section of the Emacs manual,
 >>especially the "Initial Options" and "Action Arguments" subnodes.
 >
 > Doing this in emacs lisp has the advantage of starting emacs only
 > once, as opposed to once per file.   Assuming you have a list of the
 > files you want to change, one file per line, each file with a full
 > path, this elisp will do what you want:

After exchanging a couple messages with Michael, I came up with the
idea of starting a single emacs server instance and using a client to
process each file within the shell loop:

emacs -f gnuserv-start &
#emacs_pid=$!
for file in *.vhdl; do
   gnuclient -batch $file -f vhdl-beautify-buffer -f save-buffer -f kill-buffer
done
gnuclient -f exit-emacs # || kill $emacs_pid

gnuserv/gnuclient is available at http://meltin.net/hacks/emacs/

 > (defun vhdl-batch-beautify (listfile-name)
 >   "Invoke `vhdl-beautify-buffer' on a batch of files.
 > LISTFILE-NAME is a path to a file containing a list of vhdl-files to
 > be beautified, one filename per line.  Each line should contain a full
 > path to the vhdl file."
 >   (interactive "fEnter name of file list for vhdl-beautification: ")
 >   (let ((file-list-buf (find-file listfile-name))
 >         (file-list '()))
 >     (save-excursion
 >       (set-buffer file-list-buf)
 >       (beginning-of-buffer)
 >       (while (not (eobp))
 >         (add-to-list
 >          'file-list
 >          (buffer-substring (point)
 >                            (progn (end-of-line) (point))))
 >         (unless (eobp) (forward-char 1)))
 >       (kill-buffer file-list-buf)

I also think there are more natural Emacs interfaces than LISTFILE-NAME:

(defun batch-vhdl-beautify ()           ; see batch-byte-compile
   "Invoke `vhdl-beautify-buffer' on the files remaining on the command line.
Use this from the command line, with `-batch';
it won't work in an interactive Emacs.
Each file is processed even if an error occurred previously.
For example, invoke \"emacs -batch -f batch-vhdl-beautify ~/vhdl *.vhdl\"."
   (if (not noninteractive)
       (error "`batch-vhdl-beautify' is to be used only with -batch"))
   ...)

(defun vhdl-beautify-files (&rest file-names)
   "Visit each file in FILE-NAMES and invoke `vhdl-beautify-buffer'."
   (interactive (file-expand-wildcards
                 (read-file-name "Beautify files: " nil nil nil "*.vhdl")))
   ...)

 >       ;;; probably neater to use a cl loop construct here,
 >       ;; but I've never learned how
 >       (while file-list
 >         (find-file (car file-list))
 >         (vhdl-mode)

And since we're so concerned with performance here, we should avoid
re-initializing the buffer's major mode unless we have to:

(or (eq major-mode 'vhdl-mode)
     (vhdl-mode))

 >         (vhdl-beautify-buffer)
 >         (save-buffer)
 >         (kill-buffer (current-buffer))
 >         (setq file-list (cdr file-list))))))

-- 
Kevin Rodgers