Reads the file foo.meta and writes foo.mesa. The input file looks like a cedar-mesa file, except that things within placeholder brackets (
) and after ampersands are treated specially. The code within placeholders is executed at pre-processor time. The identifiers after ampersands are treated as meta-variables, and are evaluated at pre-processor time (i.e., &s is short for
PutInt[s], where PutInt is a procedure supplied by MetaCedar at pre-processor time). Identifiers after percent signs (i.e., %s) are treated similarly, except that the meta-variable should be of type ROPE. A question mark denotes a meta-procedure (macro) call; the arguments should be enclosed in brackets and separated by commas, e.g., ?Apply[a,13]. The arguments must be balanced in ({[]}), and are turned into ropes (with expansion of the % and & meta-variables) and passed to the meta-procedure. The arguments to macro calls (currently) may not contain other macro calls.

The output is indented according to some simple rules. Try

for an example.

MetaCedar is released primarily for the use of one package, FontTune. It has also proven to be useful for generating a software rasterop for PCedar.