How to write readable source files?

How to write readable source files?

[Jan U. Hasecke]

Hi all,

how do you format your ConTeXt source files?

I recently discovered prettier which reformats source files for 
different markup
and programming languages such as html, markdown, json etc.

There are some other tools around but I don't find anything for ConTeXt.

Do you know of any prettifying tool?

Is there a best practice for ConTeXt source files, at all?

Ciao!
Jan Ulrich Hasecke
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___________________________________________________________________________________

Re: How to write readable source files?

[Henning Hraban Ramm]

> Am 24.04.2021 um 11:45 schrieb Jan U. Hasecke <juh+ntg-context@mailbox.org>:
> 
> Do you know of any prettifying tool?

I don’t know one.

> Is there a best practice for ConTeXt source files, at all?

I guess many of us adhere to Hans’ style, as shown in the sources.

i.e. e.g.
\setupsomething
  [name]
  [key=value,
   otherkey=value]

while I prefer:

\setupsomething[name][
  key=value,
  otherkey=value,
]

That looks clearer to me and works a bit better with automatic indenting in editors.

But source code formatting is a matter of taste in most cases.

Hraban
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Re: How to write readable source files?

[luigi scarso]

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On Sat, Apr 24, 2021 at 11:53 AM Jan U. Hasecke <juh+ntg-context@mailbox.org>
wrote:

>
> Hi all,
>
> how do you format your ConTeXt source files?
>
> I recently discovered prettier which reformats source files for
> different markup
> and programming languages such as html, markdown, json etc.
>
> There are some other tools around but I don't find anything for ConTeXt.
>
> Do you know of any prettifying tool?
>
> Is there a best practice for ConTeXt source files, at all?
>
>
you should consider that in TeX (but also in Python, for example) spaces
matter.
Sometimes unwanted results are triggered by unseen blanks, and they  are
hard to discover.

--
luigi

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Re: How to write readable source files?

[Hans van der Meer]

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>> Is there a best practice for ConTeXt source files, at all?

Readable code is not just about formatting. Adding clear and complete comments that document the code can be considered even more important.

dr. Hans van der Meer


> On 24 Apr 2021, at 13:55, Henning Hraban Ramm <texml@fiee.net> wrote:
> 
> 
>> Am 24.04.2021 um 11:45 schrieb Jan U. Hasecke <juh+ntg-context@mailbox.org>:
>> 
>> Do you know of any prettifying tool?
> 
> I don’t know one.
> 
>> Is there a best practice for ConTeXt source files, at all?
> 
> I guess many of us adhere to Hans’ style, as shown in the sources.
> 
> i.e. e.g.
> \setupsomething
>  [name]
>  [key=value,
>   otherkey=value]
> 
> while I prefer:
> 
> \setupsomething[name][
>  key=value,
>  otherkey=value,
> ]
> 
> That looks clearer to me and works a bit better with automatic indenting in editors.
> 
> But source code formatting is a matter of taste in most cases.
> 
> Hraban
> ___________________________________________________________________________________
> If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki!
> 
> maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context
> webpage  : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://context.aanhet.net
> archive  : https://bitbucket.org/phg/context-mirror/commits/
> wiki     : http://contextgarden.net
> ___________________________________________________________________________________


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___________________________________________________________________________________

Re: How to write readable source files?

[juh]

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Am Sat, Apr 24, 2021 at 01:55:28PM +0200 schrieb Henning Hraban Ramm:
> I guess many of us adhere to Hans’ style, as shown in the sources.
> 
> i.e. e.g.
> \setupsomething
>   [name]
>   [key=value,
>    otherkey=value]
> 
> while I prefer:
> 
> \setupsomething[name][
>   key=value,
>   otherkey=value,
> ]

I, too, stick to these styles more or less.

But after many iterations my code gets scrambled so that I would be happy to
reformat it via some tool. The usual functions in Vim and Emacs never results in
a style like this.

Ciao!
Jan Ulrich Hasecke

-- 
Autoren-Homepage: ......... http://literatur.hasecke.com
Satiren & Essays: ......... http://www.sudelbuch.de
Privater Blog: ............ http://www.hasecke.eu
Netzliteratur-Projekt: .... http://www.generationenprojekt.de



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___________________________________________________________________________________

Re: How to write readable source files?

[Hans Hagen]

On 4/24/2021 11:45 AM, Jan U. Hasecke wrote:
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> how do you format your ConTeXt source files?
> 
> I recently discovered prettier which reformats source files for 
> different markup
> and programming languages such as html, markdown, json etc.
> 
> There are some other tools around but I don't find anything for ConTeXt.
> 
> Do you know of any prettifying tool?
> 
> Is there a best practice for ConTeXt source files, at all?
most of the documentation files are ok

actually i often spend quite some time on formatting because inconstent 
formatting for sure leads to errors .. .keep in mind that in tex spaces 
and empty lines often matter

if you use the scite lexer (in verbatim) you also get an idea how I see 
the source

Hans


-----------------------------------------------------------------
                                           Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE
               Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands
        tel: 038 477 53 69 | www.pragma-ade.nl | www.pragma-pod.nl
-----------------------------------------------------------------
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___________________________________________________________________________________

Re: How to write readable source files?

[Nicola]

On 2021-04-24, juh <juh+ntg-context@mailbox.org> wrote:
> Am Sat, Apr 24, 2021 at 01:55:28PM +0200 schrieb Henning Hraban Ramm:
>> I guess many of us adhere to Hans’ style, as shown in the sources.
>>
>> i.e. e.g.
>> \setupsomething
>>   [name]
>>   [key=value,
>>    otherkey=value]
>>
>> while I prefer:
>>
>> \setupsomething[name][
>>   key=value,
>>   otherkey=value,
>> ]
>
> I, too, stick to these styles more or less.
>
> But after many iterations my code gets scrambled so that I would be happy to
> reformat it via some tool. The usual functions in Vim and Emacs never results in
> a style like this.

I maintain the ConTeXt plugin for Vim. Currently, there are no
indentation rules (except for embedded MetaPost code), and that is
intentional: as the examples above show, there is no commonly accepted
indentation style, so forcing one on the user is not a good idea.

That said, if you have a list of desiderata, I may consider adding an
option to enable them. You may open an issue here for further
discussion:

    https://github.com/lifepillar/vim-context-metapost

If you need to reflow paragraphs, the plugin provides the tp text
object. So, for instance, you may type gqtp to reformat the current
paragraph (with hard breaks) using the current textwidth.

Nicola


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Re: How to write readable source files?

[juh]

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Hi Nicola,

Am Sat, Apr 24, 2021 at 07:25:27PM -0000 schrieb Nicola:
> I maintain the ConTeXt plugin for Vim. Currently, there are no
> indentation rules (except for embedded MetaPost code), and that is
> intentional: as the examples above show, there is no commonly accepted
> indentation style, so forcing one on the user is not a good idea.

I am married to Emacs but have an affair with Vim. ;-)

I use it from time to time including your plugin.

I don't have a strong opinion about indentation. So I won't mind if a
tool would just do it for me. But I understand your point. And I tend to
say that not indenting text between start-stop-commands is the way I
want my text.

I don't like to reflow paragraphs as I want to have one line for
each sentence. This is my only opinion about formatting text. Not
indenting is a good idea because sometimes I have really long lines and
identation would make them even longer.

I real IDE-like support for ConTeXt would be nice: setup-en.pdf is
always open when I write environments as I cannot remember all commands
and options. If my editor would give me a list of possible commands when
I just type some letters and then give possible options when I edit
inside a command – that would be great. 

Thanks a lot for your help
Jan Ulrich Hasecke
-- 
Autoren-Homepage: ......... http://literatur.hasecke.com
Satiren & Essays: ......... http://www.sudelbuch.de
Privater Blog: ............ http://www.hasecke.eu
Netzliteratur-Projekt: .... http://www.generationenprojekt.de



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___________________________________________________________________________________

Re: How to write readable source files?

[Nicola]

On 2021-04-25, juh <juh+ntg-context@mailbox.org> wrote:
> I am married to Emacs but have an affair with Vim. ;-)

Eventually, you will abandon the dark side of the Force ;-)

> I real IDE-like support for ConTeXt would be nice: setup-en.pdf is
> always open when I write environments as I cannot remember all commands
> and options. If my editor would give me a list of possible commands when
> I just type some letters and then give possible options when I edit
> inside a command – that would be great.

If there is a way to automatically get a list of all ConTeXt commands
and options (and, ideally, MetaFun defs, types, and other keywords), I'd
be happy to improve omni-completion for ConTeXt in Vim.

Nicola

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Re: How to write readable source files?

[Hans Hagen]

On 4/25/2021 2:12 PM, Nicola wrote:
> On 2021-04-25, juh <juh+ntg-context@mailbox.org> wrote:
>> I am married to Emacs but have an affair with Vim. ;-)
> 
> Eventually, you will abandon the dark side of the Force ;-)
> 
>> I real IDE-like support for ConTeXt would be nice: setup-en.pdf is
>> always open when I write environments as I cannot remember all commands
>> and options. If my editor would give me a list of possible commands when
>> I just type some letters and then give possible options when I edit
>> inside a command – that would be great.
> 
> If there is a way to automatically get a list of all ConTeXt commands
> and options (and, ideally, MetaFun defs, types, and other keywords), I'd
> be happy to improve omni-completion for ConTeXt in Vim.
All is in xml files (i-*.xml) in the distribution maintained by 
Wolfgang. We ship with this for editors:

 >dir t:\texmf\context\data

04/21/2021  11:40 AM    <DIR>          scite
04/21/2021  11:40 AM    <DIR>          textadept
04/21/2021  11:40 AM    <DIR>          texworks
04/21/2021  11:40 AM    <DIR>          vscode

these lists are generated by mtx-interface so we can add more if needed

Hans

-----------------------------------------------------------------
                                           Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE
               Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands
        tel: 038 477 53 69 | www.pragma-ade.nl | www.pragma-pod.nl
-----------------------------------------------------------------
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Re: How to write readable source files?

[Nicola]

On 2021-04-25, Hans Hagen <j.hagen@xs4all.nl> wrote:
>> If there is a way to automatically get a list of all ConTeXt commands
>> and options (and, ideally, MetaFun defs, types, and other keywords), I'd
>> be happy to improve omni-completion for ConTeXt in Vim.
> All is in xml files (i-*.xml) in the distribution maintained by
> Wolfgang. We ship with this for editors:
>
> >dir t:\texmf\context\data
>
> 04/21/2021  11:40 AM    <DIR>          scite
> 04/21/2021  11:40 AM    <DIR>          textadept
> 04/21/2021  11:40 AM    <DIR>          texworks
> 04/21/2021  11:40 AM    <DIR>          vscode
>
> these lists are generated by mtx-interface so we can add more if needed

Could you please elaborate on the (automatic?) data flow from ConTeXt's
source files to data files for each application? Is it:

source code -> XML -> .lua -> mtx-interface -> data?

In particular, it is not clear to me how i-*.xml files are related to
mtx-interface, as the latter does not use them directly, AFAICS.

Anyway, mtx-interface seems exactly what I am looking for, and I would
like to use it to generate ConTeXt keywords for Vim. Can I patch that
script?

For MetaFun keywords I don't know yet: do those XML files contain enough
information about the content of all mp-* source files? E.g., the fact
that `hlingrid` is a def? Looking at the Scite files, I see only
internals and commands, and they seem to cover only the "main" MetaFun
names.

I have used a custom script in the past for fine-grained keyword
extraction from MetaFun's source code. By fine-grained, I mean that the
output contains information about the kind of keyword (def, primary def,
vardef, constant, variable, etc.) I could update it to Lua and mp-*.mpxl
if that interests you—unless that has already been done, of course.

Nicola

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Re: How to write readable source files?

[Hans Hagen]

On 5/29/2021 5:03 PM, Nicola wrote:
> On 2021-04-25, Hans Hagen <j.hagen@xs4all.nl> wrote:
>>> If there is a way to automatically get a list of all ConTeXt commands
>>> and options (and, ideally, MetaFun defs, types, and other keywords), I'd
>>> be happy to improve omni-completion for ConTeXt in Vim.
>> All is in xml files (i-*.xml) in the distribution maintained by
>> Wolfgang. We ship with this for editors:
>>
>>> dir t:\texmf\context\data
>>
>> 04/21/2021  11:40 AM    <DIR>          scite
>> 04/21/2021  11:40 AM    <DIR>          textadept
>> 04/21/2021  11:40 AM    <DIR>          texworks
>> 04/21/2021  11:40 AM    <DIR>          vscode
>>
>> these lists are generated by mtx-interface so we can add more if needed
> 
> Could you please elaborate on the (automatic?) data flow from ConTeXt's
> source files to data files for each application? Is it:
> 
> source code -> XML -> .lua -> mtx-interface -> data?
> 
> In particular, it is not clear to me how i-*.xml files are related to
> mtx-interface, as the latter does not use them directly, AFAICS.

for sure it does

in the early days of context mkii we had \startsetups kind of 
definitions that got filtered from the source but when xml support was 
built that moved to an xml file

then Wolfgang did an excellent job on checking each xml snippet and 
added many more and these i-* files showed up, we extended the xml a 
bit, redid the rendering of these lists etc

wolfgang is in charge of this so when something specific in the files is 
needed ...

> Anyway, mtx-interface seems exactly what I am looking for, and I would
> like to use it to generate ConTeXt keywords for Vim. Can I patch that
> script?

basically we only need

function flushers.vim(collected)
end

> For MetaFun keywords I don't know yet: do those XML files contain enough
> information about the content of all mp-* source files? E.g., the fact
> that `hlingrid` is a def? Looking at the Scite files, I see only
> internals and commands, and they seem to cover only the "main" MetaFun
> names.

it is still on the agenda to make xml files for metafun but there is no 
timeline for that

now, when it comes to highlighting, the reference is the scite one 
(which supports several of the languages that we use, and also supports 
mixed lua/mp/tex/... lexing) ... right from the start the way it shows 
up in an editor determined how the user interface evolved ... believe it 
or not, but for a long time we used texedit (written in modula, was 
pretty ok in 640K mem, also fast and one could scroll files in the 
sidebar and see them instantly; it used the character based windowing 
i'd written as a student for terminals connected to a dec vax .. just 
for fun ... i'm that old) ... when modula disappeared i actually rewrote 
that one in perl/tk and it still works but then decided to use scite

anyway, so scite is still my reference (i looked to vscode but seeing 
all this extra stuff, the need for 'servers', the lack of simply running 
a command based on suffix ... not now)

that said, we can support whatever editor one uses makes much sense (one 
should really use the editor, word processor, operating system etc one 
feels most comfortable with) so just make a prototype (or tell me what 
kind of lists you need, because it's rather trivial to generate them)

> I have used a custom script in the past for fine-grained keyword
> extraction from MetaFun's source code. By fine-grained, I mean that the
> output contains information about the kind of keyword (def, primary def,
> vardef, constant, variable, etc.) I could update it to Lua and mp-*.mpxl
> if that interests you—unless that has already been done, of course.
just look at the files in the scite path ... much info is available, for 
context it comes from the xml files, for the tex engine and meta* it 
comes from mult* lua files

adding more detail (not sure if distinguishing between def and vardef 
makes sense ... we more use the 'primitive', 'lowlevel', 'interface' 
kind of grouping

let's see what Wolfgang thinks of it ...

Hans

-----------------------------------------------------------------
                                           Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE
               Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands
        tel: 038 477 53 69 | www.pragma-ade.nl | www.pragma-pod.nl
-----------------------------------------------------------------
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Re: How to write readable source files?

[Nicola]

On 2021-05-29, Hans Hagen <j.hagen@xs4all.nl> wrote:
> On 5/29/2021 5:03 PM, Nicola wrote:
>>> these lists are generated by mtx-interface so we can add more if needed
>>
>> Could you please elaborate on the (automatic?) data flow from ConTeXt's
>> source files to data files for each application? Is it:
>>
>> source code -> XML -> .lua -> mtx-interface -> data?
>>
>> In particular, it is not clear to me how i-*.xml files are related to
>> mtx-interface, as the latter does not use them directly, AFAICS.
>
> for sure it does

Ok, my cursory look was then… too cursory. I'll dig better.

>> Anyway, mtx-interface seems exactly what I am looking for, and I would
>> like to use it to generate ConTeXt keywords for Vim. Can I patch that
>> script?
>
> basically we only need
>
> function flushers.vim(collected)
> end

Ok.

>> For MetaFun keywords I don't know yet: do those XML files contain enough
>> information about the content of all mp-* source files? E.g., the fact
>> that `hlingrid` is a def? Looking at the Scite files, I see only
>> internals and commands, and they seem to cover only the "main" MetaFun
>> names.
>
> it is still on the agenda to make xml files for metafun but there is no
> timeline for that

So, is it correct that the XML files are automatically generated from
the source code, and kept in sync with it? If so, how is that done? Or
are they manually curated? I'd be willing to contribute to make progress
on the MetaFun part.

> just look at the files in the scite path ... much info is available, for
> context it comes from the xml files, for the tex engine and meta* it
> comes from mult* lua files

Ok, I'll look there.

> adding more detail (not sure if distinguishing between def and vardef
> makes sense ... we more use the 'primitive', 'lowlevel', 'interface'
> kind of grouping

Whatever you think is more appropriate... Provided that it can be parsed
automatically.

Nicola

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Re: How to write readable source files?

[Hans Hagen]

On 5/29/2021 8:29 PM, Nicola wrote:

> So, is it correct that the XML files are automatically generated from
> the source code, and kept in sync with it? If so, how is that done? Or

the xml files are maintained by Wolfgang who knows context inside out 
and has ways to keep track of additions (although some commands became 
obsolete when we went mkiv, like those dealing with font encoding and 
so) we're mostly talking about additions

> are they manually curated? I'd be willing to contribute to make progress
> on the MetaFun part.

ok, but let's first wait what Wolfgang says .. we probably first have to 
check if we need to add some to the xml definitions

(btw, the lmt metapost commands i.e. the key/value macros fit in well in 
the optional argument appeoach, the more low level ones more resemble 
the low level context commands for which we have specific definitions)

> Whatever you think is more appropriate... Provided that it can be parsed
> automatically.
so what does vim expect? isn't there some kind of common format for lexers?

Hans

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                                           Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE
               Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands
        tel: 038 477 53 69 | www.pragma-ade.nl | www.pragma-pod.nl
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___________________________________________________________________________________

Re: How to write readable source files?

[Nicola]

On 2021-05-29, Hans Hagen <j.hagen@xs4all.nl> wrote:
> so what does vim expect? isn't there some kind of common format for lexers?

The output I need is very simple:

    syn keyword Group1 <keyword1> <keyword2> ...
    syn keyword Group2 <keyword1> <keyword2> ...
    ...

where Group1, Group2, ... define arbitrary groups of keywords. For
instance, for MetaFun I currently have `mpDef` (MetaPost def macro),
`mpVardef` (MetaPost vardef), `mpPrimaryDef`, `mpSecondaryDef`,
`mpTertiaryDef`, `mpCommand`, `mpConstant`, `mpVariable`, `mpType`,
`mpNewInternal`, and a few others. An excerpt from the current syntax
file looks like this:

    ...
    " mp-base.mpiv
    syn keyword mpNumExp       graypart
    syn keyword mpType         graycolor greycolor
    syn keyword mpConstant     cyan magenta yellow
    " mp-butt.mpiv
    syn keyword mpDef          predefinedbutton some_button
    syn keyword mpConstant     context_butt
    " mp-char.mpiv
    syn keyword mpDef          flow_begin_chart flow_begin_sub_chart
    syn keyword mpDef          flow_chart_draw_comment flow_chart_draw_exit
    ...
    syn keyword mpVardef       flow_xy_on_grid flow_xy_right flow_xy_top
    syn keyword mpVardef       flow_y_on_grid
    syn keyword mpVariable     flow_arrowtip flow_chart_background_color
    syn keyword mpVariable     flow_chart_offset flow_comment_offset
    syn keyword mpVariable     flow_connection_arrow_size
    ...

This fine-grained classification allows for great flexibility when
defining syntax highlighting, because each group can have different
properties (and the user can customize that), although by default
several groups are highlighted in the same way (e.g., all macros have
the same highlighting by default).

Nicola

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