Re: automate Emacs beautifyer ?

[Kevin Rodgers]

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