Thursday 26th November, 1998

Dear David,

Herewith the spec. for the "automatic file
processing" we spoke about yesterday, and
which you say you can script in tcl.

BACKGROUND: vipic on vandyck (try "man vipic")
is an extension to the vi editor allowing a URL to
be pasted into a text file. A dot file specifies
the format of the HTML. cf. vandyck, at 
/usr/local/etc/httpd_1.5/htdocs/borobudur/text/culture,
where .vipicrc gives the details. In the same directory,
culture.1rtf.html is the text file, and .vipicrc
specifies the location of the database file.

SPECIFIC PROBLEM: culture.1rtf.html is the start of
a long account of Borobudur, specifying reliefs etc
by referring to their location according to Krom's numbering
system for his series of reliefs, with Roman numerals 
being main reliefs, B meaning balustrade, and D meaning 
decorative. The categories are:

	O I II III IV BIa BIb BII BIII BIV DO DB DBIb
	DBII DB III DBIV

- although, as we saw when looking at the text file (i.e.
culture.1rtf.html), we apparently also get numeral-letter
as well as letter-numeral sequences, followed by arabic
numerals giving the plate - so IIIB 26 is the same as BIII26 -
and he isn't too bothered about a space or not between series
and plate number!

SPECIFIC AIM: is to have a script process the text file,
put each relief mentioned on a separate line, and the
URL of the specific large image (i.e. the JPEG) next to it.
If at all possible, a SECOND process would then be executed,
after saving the edited text file just-in-case, which would
insert the vipic commands ('^' to start, then paste URL,
then '&' to cast-off singleton images, or a whole series of
images.

GENERAL AIM: to allow me to insert image filenames in a text
file (in the format '2.JPG', '154.JPG') and have the script
do the same as above, getting the database information from
the .vipicrc file which will live in the same directory. NB
the format of the datafile is always very similar - record-per-line,
comma-delimited, pure text, but often with the image filename
needed to be expanded from e.g. "123" to "123.JPG".

Trust all the above is clear as mud :) You'll let me know if any
necessary details are missing.

When should I have another play with ibatch?

best wishes,

Michael Greenhalgh