readme

                          Pascal-FC for PC Compatibles







          The software and documentation are supplied subject  to  the
          following conditions:

          1.   The software and documentation are supplied without any
               form  of  warranty  whatsoever,  and the authors cannot
               accept any liability arising from  its  use  under  any
               circumstances.

          2.   The software has been compiled using compilers obtained
               under  an Educational Licence.  It must only be used in
               educational  institutions,  and  must  under  no   cir-
               cumstances be used for financial gain.

          3.   The software and documentation may be freely copied.

          4.   We ask that you cite our work in any publications aris-
               ing out of the use of Pascal-FC.
                                 Directory Structure

          This release of the Pascal-FC system includes a  SETUP  pro-
          gram  that  is designed to transfer files from the distribu-
          tion floppy to a hard  disc  (see  Chapter  1  of  the  User
          Guide). If you have obtained the distribution by FTP or from
          the World-Wide Web, don't run SETUP but simply create a dir-
          ectory C;\PASFC and unzip the distribution zip file there. A
          directory  structure  is set up  which, by default,  has its
          root at C;\PASFC. The following diagram illustrates the str-
          ucture.



                                     PASFC
                                       |
                                       |
                           ___________________________
                           |           |             |
                           |           |             |
                          BIN         DOC           EX
                                                     |
                                                     |
                                     ________________________________
                                     |     |    |    |    |    |    |
                                    MUTEX SEMS MONS RES CHANS ADA PHILOS



          The directory "bin" contains the executable versions of  the
          compiler  and  interpreters,  together with the pfc command.










          The pfc command is a shell script, and the  paths  p  and  q
          should be edited by the installer as appropriate.

               The directory "ex"  has  a  number  of  subdirectories:
          each  one  of  these contains a number of ".pfc" files which
          are Pascal-FC source programs.

               The directory "doc" contains two  documents:   "lrm.ps"
          is the Language Reference Manual, and "sun_ug.ps is the User
          Guide for Sun Systems.  Both are in Postscript  format,  and
          have their tables of contents printed at the end.

               The distribution disc has an additional subdirectory to
          PASFC:   SRC.   This contains the Pascal source code for the
          compiler and interpreters, but this directory is  not  down-
          loaded by the SETUP program.


Addition Information August 2001 - With thanks
to Terry Moore who advised on the inclusion of
these comments


PascalFC dates from the time of Windows 3.1 when DOS 
was still a popular operating system. It works in DOS 
mode under later versions of Windows with some 
qualification.

It seems to be OK under Windows 95 and 98 because 
these are built on top of DOS, but the DOS Prompt 
is implemented on top of Windows NT and Windows 2000 
and this causes some problems.

In Windows 2000, the first character of the first 
command parameter is dropped from the command line 
for pfccomp, pint and ufpint, and this affects the 
batch file, pfc.bat as well. The workaround is to 
supply a dummy character (the open quote, `, being 
unobtrusive, is a good choice). 

When trying to run pint or ufpint, the message 
Runtime error R6009, not enough space for environment, 
could appear. This can be solved by deleting or 
shortening some environment variables. If you still 
need them for Windows programs, do not do this in 
Windows setup, but use a batch file, or modify 
Config.NT, or Autoexec.NT in the WINNT\System32 folder. 
See the file pc_up.ps for more details.

====

Addition Material For pc_ug.ps - original of
document not available so please read the following
with original pc_ug.ps
===================================================
Issues when running under Windows 2000 and possibly
Windows NT.
---------------------------------------------------

These programs are run in DOS mode by the DOS Prompt 
program. As DOS is not as familiar to PC users as it 
once was, we give some brief notes.

DOS
---
A DOS command is of the form given in the example 
below.

  dir C:\WINNT\System32\*.* | sort > drctry.txt

This lists the names of the files in the directory 
C:\WINNT\System32, sorts it, and puts the result into 
the file drctry.txt.

The parts after the command, dir, are the command line
parameters and are optional.

The parameter, | sort, is a filter - a program that 
takes the output and alters it in some way. Another 
example is | more which pauses after each page of 
output.

The parameter > drctry.txt is a pipe which is like a 
filter except that there is no processing of the output.

The pipe >> drctry.txt would append the 
output to the existing file rather than clearing it 
first. One can also pipe the results directly to
some other device like a printer.

The pipe, < somefile, would redirect input from a 
file instead of the keyboard. This makes no sense 
for the dir command, which doesn't require input.

The command

  dir /p

lists the current directory (as no path is specified) 
and pauses at the end of each screen because of the 
command line parameter, /p, which is a built in version 
of | more.

DOS and Windows use strings called "environment 
variables" to keep information needed for running 
programs. DOS users are familiar with the string, 
prompt. prompt = $p$g is the most popular value 
which makes the prompt the current path followed 
by a greater than sign. E. g.

  C:\pasfc\ex\mutex>

The path command is also very useful.

  path = .;C:\;C:\pasfc\bin

means that when a command is given, if it is one 
not built into DOS, the DOS shell looks first in 
the current directory for the corresponding program, 
then in drive C at the top level, and then in the 
directory C:\pasfc\bin.

Problems with PascalFC
----------------------

The first character problem
---------------------------
As pfccomp, pint and ufpint drop the first character 
of the first command parameter, you need to type a 
dummy character (preferably `). For example

  pint `objFile pmdFile < data > results

(to also illustrate piping) is a little more readable 
than

  pint oobjFile pmdFile < data > results

You can do the same with the pfc command that compiles 
and runs a program, but you could avoid the need for 
the dummy character if you amend the file pfc.bat by 
adding a character at the start of the next string 
following each occurrence of pint and ufpint. Don't 
use the % character as a dummy because it has a special 
meaning in batch files (it defines a variable).

The environment space problem
-----------------------------
A DOS path string (and similarly any other environment
variable) cannot exceed 128 bytes. (In some versions 
of DOS this restriction is relaxed, but then the 
path cannot be edited in the usual way.) Also, the 
total number bytes in the environment variables cannot 
exceed 256 bytes, a number which varies with the DOS 
version. As Windows can use far more environment 
space than DOS, there is often a problem. Also, pint 
and ufpint create or amend environment variables and
cannot run if this space is not available.

The path length restriction is unavoidable, but there 
are tricks to minimise a path string. However, for 
running PascalFC, the path can be quite short.

According to the note, Q33449 - How to Increase MS-DOS 
Environment Space, in the Microsoft support web pages,
it is possible to increase the environment space in 
Windows NT. However, the fix they give doesn't seem to 
work in Windows 2000.

We therefore need to reduce the amount of environment 
space used. Changes made in a batch file run under 
DOS Prompt will not affect the environment strings stored 
in Windows. The path (and the DOS prompt) can be changed 
directly. To see the path, without changing it, type

  path

To delete the path, type

  path ;

To replace the original path with ".;\pasFC\bin", type

  path = .;\pasFC\bin

To append the above to the current path, type

  path = %path%;.;\pasFC\bin

Apart from 'path' and 'prompt', other environment variables 
are set with the 'set' command.

It is a good idea to make a list of all your environment 
variables so as to see what to amend, and to make it easier 
to amend them. Type

  set > setenv.bat

to make a batch file, setenv.bat, containing all the 
environment variables. You can then modify this to make 
a batch file to reset the environment. Run it by 
typing

  setenv

Put 'rem ' in front of those variables you want to leave 
alone. This turns those lines into comments but keeps them 
for future reference. Put 'SET ' in front of the others 
and then amend the rest of the line to what you want.
To delete the variable use, for example,

  SET commandpath

Preferably make the smallest number of changes necessary. 
Perhaps you just need to shorten the 'path' string.

The whole file could be pasted into Autoexec.NT, in the 
directory C:\WINNT\System32, but this means that other DOS 
programs are stuck with your new environment.