String::RexxParse Module

Copyright (c) 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002 Dan Campbell (String::RexxParse->email)
All rights reserved.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.


Some long-time REXX programmers switching to Perl find it difficult 
to give up REXX's template-based parsing abilities.  This module is 
my attempt to provide such parsing in Perl.  The documentation assumes 
a familiarity with REXX parse statements.


I tested this module on OS/2, Linux (RedHat 6.1), AIX, and OS/390.  It
should work exactly the same on any platform.

Revision history for Perl extension String::RexxParse:
------------------------------------------------------

1.00  Sat Aug 27 1999
      - original version; 

1.01  Sat Sep 4 1999
      - Fixed incorrect template parsing when a pattern is the 
        first template item. 

1.02  Sat Sep 4 1999
      - Fixed incorrect handling of variable pattern in template 
        when variable's value contains regex meta characters. 

1.03  Sat Sep 6 1999
      - Fixed incorrect handling of template when two or more
        patterns are next to each other, or when last template
        item is a pattern.

1.04  Fri Oct 1 1999
      - Changed module name from String::Parser to String::RexxParse.

1.05  Tue Oct 19 1999
      - Minor doc changes.

1.06  Sun Mar 26 2000
      - Internal optimizations for the following type of templates:
        - template is only a single lvalue
        - template is only lvalues and '.' place holders
        - template is only patterns, lvalues, and '.' place holders
      - Removed my email address to avoid spam.  My email address
        will be returned by calling String::RexxParse->email from 
        a perl program that uses String::RexxParse.
      - Minor doc changes.

1.07  Sat Apr 1 2000
      - additional internal optimizations for the following type of templates:
        - template is only lvalues and '.' place holders
        - template is only patterns, lvalues, and '.' place holders

1.08  Thu May 18 2000
      - fixed bug introduced in 1.07
      - added j.t to test suite

1.09  Thu Jul 7 2000
      - general cleanup
      - no functional changes

1.10  Fri Mar 8 2002
      - Put eval around processing of numeric patterns in order to set $@
        in calling module when there is an error.
      - Added protection against errors for numeric patterns when string
        to be parsed is shorter than the pattern calls for.

Latest Version:
---------------

The latest version of String::RexxParse in .tar.gz format can
be obtained from:

       http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/String/BLCKSMTH 

The latest version of String::RexxParse in .tar.gz format can 
be obtained from:

       http://www.danofsteel.com/Parser 


Installation:
-------------


  tar -xzf String-RexxParse-1.10.tar.gz

  perl Makefile.PL
  make
  make test
  make install