NAME
m3bundle - package source files into M3 object
SYNTAX
m3bundle -name n -element e1 path1 [-element ei pathi]...
m3bundle -FcmdFile
DESCRIPTION
m3bundle packages up arbitrary files so that their contents can be retrieved by a Modula-3 program at runtime without accessing the file system. m3bundle works by generating an interface (.i3) and implementation (.m3) file. The implementation contains the bits from the files that are being bundled; the interface provides a way to access this information.
In the first form of the command above,
n is the name of the source module to be produced by m3bundle
path_i is the path name of a file to be bundled
e_i is the name of the resulting text reader
That is, the command produces a Modula-3 interface n.i3 and module n.m3 implementing "n". The interface n.i3 has the form:
INTERFACE n;
IMPORT Bundle;
PROCEDURE Get(): Bundle.T;
END n;
A programmer can then use the Bundle interface to retrieve elements from the Bundle.T returned by Get.
The second form of the m3bundle command allows you to specify the parameters in the file named cmdFile. This is needed when bundling lots (i.e., hundreds) of files, since Unix imposes a limit on the size of arguments to a shell command.
AUTHOR OF OBJECT
Greg Nelson
Marc H. Brown added support for large files and revamped the internals.
Eric Muller added -F flag
AUTHOR OF DOCUMENTATION
Greg Nelson and Paul Mcjones