July 2, 2004 2:56 PM
I've put up the code I've adapted for my use from MarkTriggs's file
listing generator in the Code Archives section. Additionally, it
provides a summary for C files. The ability to publish the code to
html relies extensively on Satyakid's implementation of html-fontify.
It was so funny when I tried to write a regexp that would match all
the function declarations in C code. The while loop, if, etc
matches with the same regexp. I didn't waste any time doing any more
research on regexps. Simply wrote lame hacks to remove the evil
miscreants ;). Later when I was reading through The History of C++,
(Stroustrup, 1996), I realized even the legendary Stroustrup had
failed to come up with a BNF for C syntax. He even contacted Ravi
Sethi1, who was also defeated and found that he couldn't express C
semantics that way. To quote Stroustrup:
The main problem was the irregularity of C and the number of implementation-dependent and undefined aspects of a C implementation.
I have to admit, it was so much fun writing this piece of code. Elisp is awesome even in the hands of inefficient and lazy h4k3rs!
[1] Author of textbook2 for our Programming Languages paper.
[2] "Programming Languages Designs and Concepts"