Reading Other Files

There are several subroutines for reading other files:

&slurp_inputname=&slurp_input,sort=slurpinput,description=This takes one argument, the name of the file to be input. The contents of the file are placed in $_ without any conversion applied.&slurp_input

takes one argument, the name of the file to be input. The contents of the file are put in $_ without any conversion applied.

&slurp_input_and_partition_and_pre_processname=&slurp_input_and_partition_and_pre_process,sort=slurpinputand,description=This takes one argument, the name of the file to be read. The contents of the file are translated and placed in $_.&slurp_input_and_partition_and_pre_process

takes one argument, the name of the file to be input. This subroutine reads the entire input file and pre-processes it. It is then returned as a single string.

&process_ext_file

This reads in a LaTeX generated file with the same root name as the main file being processed, but a different extension (e.g. aux or bbl). It takes one argument, the file extension, and returns success or failure, and $_ is set.

Be careful when specifying the filename with the first two, as LaTeX2HTML may not be in the directory you started in, so it is best to give the full pathname using $texfilepathname=$texfilepath,sort=texfilepath,description=The directory containing the LaTeX file to be translated.$texfilepath and $ddname=$dd,sort=dd,description=The directory divider. This is platform specific, and is determined at the start of the LaTeX2HTML run. Use this variable to ensure that your code is platform independent.$dd.

Suppose you have a LaTeX command called, say, \inputcsv{filename}, which reads in comma-separated data from the file given by filename, and sets it in a table. For example, if the contents of the file sample.csv looked like:

1,5,10,12,3
4,7,9,5,2
7,3,2,1,0

then \inputcsv{sample.csv} will produce the following table:

1	5	10	12	3
4	7	9	5	2
7	3	2	1	0

then the Perl code, might look something like:

sub do_cmd_inputcsv{
   local($after) = @_;
   local($file,$table);

   $file = &missing_braces
     unless ($after=~s/$next_pair_pr_rx/$file=$2;''/eo);

   $file = "$texfilepath$dd$file";

   &slurp_input($file);

   s/,/<\/TD><TD ALIGN=RIGHT>/sg;
   s/\n/<\/TD><\/TR>\n<TR><TD ALIGN=RIGHT>/sg;
   s/^/<TR><TD ALIGN=RIGHT>/g;

   $table = "</TD></TR><TABLE ALIGN=CENTER>";
   $table .= $_;
   $table .= "</TABLE>";

   $table . $after;
}

Since sample.csv does not contain any LaTeX code--and so no translation is required--&slurp_inputname=&slurp_input,sort=slurpinput,description=This takes one argument, the name of the file to be input. The contents of the file are placed in $_ without any conversion applied.&slurp_input is used. Note that the full pathname is given by prepending $texfilepathname=$texfilepath,sort=texfilepath,description=The directory containing the LaTeX file to be translated.$texfilepath$ddname=$dd,sort=dd,description=The directory divider. This is platform specific, and is determined at the start of the LaTeX2HTML run. Use this variable to ensure that your code is platform independent.$dd to the given file name. Note also the use of $after instead of $_. This was done because &slurp_inputname=&slurp_input,sort=slurpinput,description=This takes one argument, the name of the file to be input. The contents of the file are placed in $_ without any conversion applied.&slurp_input modifies $_. If the file is likely to contain LaTeX commands, e.g.:

A,B,C,D,E\&F
1,5,10,12,3
4,7,9,5,2
7,3,2,1,0

then you should use &slurp_input_and_partition_and_pre_processname=&slurp_input_and_partition_and_pre_process,sort=slurpinputand,description=This takes one argument, the name of the file to be read. The contents of the file are translated and placed in $_.&slurp_input_and_partition_and_pre_process instead.