meta - A simple front-end to Acme::MetaSyntactic
meta [ --whitespace|ws ] [ --help ] [ --version ] [
--remote ] [ --check ] [ --sources ] [ --category
category ] theme[/category] [ count ]
meta is a simple front-end to Acme::MetaSyntactic.
A few examples should make it easy to understand what it does and
how it works:
$ meta
baz
$ meta batman
powie
$ meta donmartin 3
kloong
thoof_foing
weeooweeeoooo
$ meta -ws browser 4
arachne netscape voyager w3m
In short, the default theme is
"foo", the default count is 1, the default
separator is $/, but you can replace it by
whitespace with --ws.
The following command-line options are available:
- --whitespace, --ws
- Print all items on a single line, separated by space.
- --remote
- Fetch the remote list (if available) and print it.
- --check
- Fetch the remote list (if available) and print only the differences betwen
the current list and the remote list (items are prefixed by
"+" and
"-").
Option added by Abigail.
The output of this option is affected by the
--whitespace option.
- --category category
- Only select items in the given category (for
"Acme::MetaSyntactic::MultiList"
subclasses). If not given, use the default category.
Silently fallbacks to the default if the category doesn't
exist.
Another way to ask for a specific category is to skip the
--category option and directly ask for
"theme/category". Note that you cannot
use both calling conventions simultaneously.
The program will exit if any of these options is selected. However, these
options can be combined.
- --themes
- Print the list of available themes.
- --sources
- Print the URLs used by a remote list.
- --version
- Print version information.
- --help
- Print a short help message.
meta is the script of choice for a new generation of hackers. Here are a
few comments from satisfied users:
- "Acme::MetaSyntactic" makes me more productive
when I have to write regression tests for my Perl modules. No more
do I spend time looking for variable names! It simply changed my
life.
-- Rafael Garcia-Suarez, pumpking, used AMS when writing tests
for "Sub::Identify".
- "Acme::MetaSyntactic" gave names for regression
tests in the Perl core
See
<https://github.com/Perl/perl5/commit/adc51b978ed1b2e9d4512c9bfa80386ac917d05a>.
- Your module has been a wonderful timesaver for me. How much time I used
to spend on thinking about good and meaningful variable names, and
now I have them at the snap of a finger!
-- Gisbert W. Selke
- [...] with the help of Acme::MetaSyntatic I've been able to do some
rudimentary code generation techniques that save me a lot of time
without much outlay.
-- Mark Fowler
<http://blog.twoshortplanks.com/2010/07/03/holy_acceleration/>
- When writing example applications, I almost always use variable
names such as foo and bar. This gets boring, and it easily confuse
the reader. Especially when I need to use more variables.
-- Gabor Szabo
<http://perlmaven.com/acme-metasyntactic>
Ever needed to debug with the help of a few
"print()" statements? Simply map some
keystrokes to insert a warning where you want it. With meta, you will
never need to think about what write in the string argument:
nmap _wa :r!meta donmartin<CR>iwarn"<Esc>A";<Esc>==
(This mapping kindly given by Rafael Garcia-Suarez.)
Philippe "BooK" Bruhat,
"<book@cpan.org>".
Copyright 2005-2006 Philippe 'BooK' Bruhat, All Rights Reserved.
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
the same terms as Perl itself.