KEDIT: Summary of New Features

Summary of New Features

The biggest change made in KEDIT for Windows is, of course, the addition of the Windows user interface. This chapter summarizes the other new features added in KEDIT for Windows. It covers the features added since the release of KEDIT 5.0. For a summary of the additional changes made since KEDIT 4.0, see Section 5.7, ``Additional Changes for KEDIT 4.0 Users''.

Syntax Coloring

When you use KEDIT to edit a computer program, it is often useful to make different types of text within the program, such as keywords, quoted strings, and comments, stand out. This makes it easier, for example, to tell which text is part of a comment and which text is part of the program, and to tell whether a string is properly quoted. This capability is available in KEDIT for Windows, and is referred to as the syntax coloring facility. KEDIT has built-in syntax coloring support for a number of languages, including C and C++, REXX and KEXX, HTML, Java, FORTRAN, COBOL, BASIC, Pascal, and dBase.

Syntax coloring is user configurable. The details of each language are specified in KEDIT Language Definition files that you can change by, for example, adding your own keywords. You can also develop your own KEDIT Language Definition files to support additional languages.

For more about this topic, see User's Guide Section 3.12, ``Syntax Coloring''.

Regular Expressions

Regular expressions are a special kind of string target that let you match more general string patterns than ordinary string targets. You can use regular expressions with LOCATE and other commands that work with targets, with the CHANGE command, and with dialog boxes like Edit Find and Edit Replace. Regular expressions are discussed in User's Guide Section 6.6, ``Regular Expressions''.

KEXX Enhancements

A number of enhancements have been made to the KEXX macro language, which is fully documented in Reference Manual Chapter 6, ``Macro Reference''.

Arithmetic

Non-integer arithmetic is now supported, so the numbers used in KEXX macros can now use decimal points and exponential notation. You are also no longer limited to 9-digit arithmetic; you can use the NUMERIC instruction to specify up to 50 digits of accuracy.

Built-in functions

The REXX I/O functions LINEIN(), LINEOUT(), CHARIN(), CHAROUT(), LINES(), and CHARS() functions are now supported. This means that KEXX macros can now read and write disk files. Previously, the only way for a KEXX macro to access the contents of a disk file was to use the KEDIT command to bring that file into the ring.
The REXX functions B2X(), CONDITION(), DIGITS(), ERRORTEXT(), FORMAT(), FUZZ(), RANDOM(), SOURCELINE(), SYMBOL(), TRACE(), TRUNC(), VALUE(), and X2B() are also now supported.
The C2D(), C2X(), D2C(), D2X(), X2C(), and X2D() functions have been enhanced to work with multiple characters and values greater than 256.
DOSDIR() returns directory information for a disk file; you can also use it to tell whether a particular disk file exists. Previously, the only way for a KEXX macro to access directory information was to use the DIR command and examine the resulting DIR.DIR file.
DATECONV() lets you convert a date from one format to another.
COUNTSTR() counts the number of occurrences of one string in another, and CHANGESTR() lets you replace these occurrences with a different string.
ANSIUPPER() and ANSILOWER() let you uppercase and lowercase text in the ANSI character set and, unlike the UPPER() and LOWER() functions, can handle accented letters.
ANSITOOEM() and OEMTOANSI() let you convert strings from the ANSI character set to the OEM character set and vice versa.

Instructions

New or enhanced KEXX instructions include NUMERIC, SELECT, SIGNAL label, SIGNAL ON|OFF condition, CALL ON|OFF condition, and PROCEDURE EXPOSE.
In previous versions of KEXX, instructions processed by INTERPRET could not CALL internal routines or invoke internal routines as functions. This limitation has been removed.
You can now specify a loop control variable with the ITERATE, LEAVE, and END instructions. For ITERATE and LEAVE, this provides a way to iterate or exit from a loop other than the innermost enclosing loop. For END, this forces an error if the variable name does not correspond to the control variable for the loop being ended; this helps you track down mismatched DO -- END pairs.

External routines

KEXX now supports calls to external routines. That is, with the CALL instruction and with function invocations, you can call a separate KEXX macro as a subroutine. In the past, you could only invoke separate KEXX macros via the MACRO instruction, but this method provided no convenient way to return a result string from the external macro to the calling macro.

Binary strings

KEXX now supports binary strings, specified as a series of binary digits (that is, 0 or 1) followed by an uppercase or lowercase B, for example

'11011'b

KML comments

You can now use ``::*'' (colon, colon, asterisk) at the start of a line in a KML file to annotate the KML file. This KML comment line will be completely ignored by KEDIT.

Size of KEXX macros

The maximum size of a KEXX macro has been raised to 4000 lines. Depending on which version of text mode KEDIT you have, the previous limit was 250, 500, or 1000. The maximum length of a line in a KEXX macro is still 250.

Character sets

When you are working with an ANSI font, text within .KEX and .KML files is assumed to be in the ANSI character set. Existing macros for text mode KEDIT that use accented characters within quoted strings may need to be converted from OEM to ANSI.

International Support

KEDIT for Windows has new facilities to help you work with international text in the ANSI character set. The SET INTERNATIONAL command controls whether the UPPERCASE and LOWERCASE commands and case-insensitive string target searches treat accented international characters as alphabetic, and whether KEDIT's SORT command uses the sorting order defined by your Windows language drivers. For more about this topic, see User's Guide Section 3.8, ``International Support''.

Key Definitions

Key names

For consistency with Microsoft's Windows documentation, we are referring to keynames in our documentation with ``+'' rather than ``-''. For example, instead of ``Shift-F1'', we will use ``Shift+F1''. Because of this, KEDIT for Windows now accepts both ``+'' and ``-'' (for example, SHIFT+F1 as well as SHIFT-F1) as valid in keynames used with the DEFINE and related commands. However, for compatibility with existing macros, READV KEY and QUERY LASTKEY will continue to use ``-'' in the keynames that they return.

See Reference Manual Chapter 7, ``Built-in Macro Handling'', for more information about the key names used by KEDIT for Windows.

Ctrl+Break

On rare occasions Ctrl+Break might be ignored during the processing of a long-running macro. In these cases, you can use Alt+Ctrl+Shift to terminate the macro.

Key combinations

Several new key combinations, not available in the text mode version of KEDIT, can now be defined: Ctrl+1, Ctrl+3, Ctrl+4, Ctrl+5, Ctrl+7, Ctrl+8, Ctrl+9, Ctrl+0, Ctrl+;, Ctrl+', Ctrl+,, Ctrl+., Ctrl+/, Ctrl+`, Ctrl+Star, and Ctrl+=, plus the Shift+Ctrl variants of these keys. You can also define Alt+Star and the App key (the Application key available on some Windows-specific keyboards), along with its Shift+App, Ctrl+App, and Alt+App variants.

You can also now define Shift+Ctrl+x key combinations, such as Shift+Ctrl+F1, and Alt+Ctrl+x key combinations.

Note that with non-U.S. keyboard drivers, Windows gives special handling to Alt+Ctrl, treating it as equivalent to the AltGr key found on non-U.S. keyboards. Users of non-U.S. keyboard drivers should, therefore, not redefine Alt+Ctrl+x character keys that have additional characters normally accessed in combination with the AltGr key. Additionally, Alt+Ctrl+x character keys that have not been redefined are ignored by READV KEY and by QUERY LASTKEY.

Other Changes

Long filename support

The 32-bit version of KEDIT for Windows (but not the 16-bit version) supports the long filenames available under Windows 95/98/NT/2000/Me/XP. Much of the long filename support is similar to the existing long filename support in KEDIT 5.0 for OS/2.

Some points to be aware of:

When you use filenames that contain blanks or parentheses in commands issued from a macro or from the command line, you must enclose these names in double quotes. For example, from the KEDIT command line:
```
KEDIT "A name with blanks"
```
In text mode KEDIT and in the 16-bit version of KEDIT for Windows, if you specify a file name that is longer than 8 characters or a file extension that is longer than 3 characters, KEDIT will silently truncate the excess characters. In the 32-bit version of KEDIT for Windows, no truncation will take place. For example:
```
KEDIT 1234567890.ABCD
```
In 16-bit versions of KEDIT, this will edit the file 12345678.ABC. In the 32-bit version of KEDIT, this will edit the file 1234567890.ABCD.
In the DOS version of KEDIT and in the 16-bit version of KEDIT for Windows, you can give a fileid specification that uses a period followed by a file extension, and KEDIT will substitute the name of the current file for the missing file name component. In the 32-bit version of KEDIT, where fileids that have no file name component are legal, KEDIT will use the fileid as you specify it, without any file name. For example:
```
KEDIT .TXT
```
If you are editing the file SAMPLE.FIL when this command is issued, 16-bit versions of KEDIT will edit the file SAMPLE.TXT, while the 32-bit version of KEDIT will edit the file .TXT. For more about long filenames, see User's Guide Section 3.12, ``Long Filenames''.

UNC name support

UNC (Universal Naming Convention) names are supported in both the 16- and 32-bit versions of KEDIT for Windows. This means that you can access files on network servers by using names like \\SERVER2\DISKC\ABC.TXT.

SORT limit removed

The SORT command in KEDIT for DOS can handle a maximum of 10,000 lines. That limit has been removed in KEDIT for Windows; the SORT command is limited only by available virtual memory. Note, however, that sort performance can degrade significantly if the data to be sorted will not fit within your machine's physical memory and must be paged to and from disk by Windows.

Case-sensitive replacements

When case-insensitive searches are done with the CHANGE and related commands and with the Edit Replace dialog box, KEDIT now attempts to adjust the case of the replacement string in a reasonable way, rather than substituting it unchanged into the file. For example, with the second RESPECT|IGNORE operand of SET CASE equal to IGNORE, the following command:

CHANGE /the/a/ 1 *

would previously change

The boy saw the girl.

into

a boy saw a girl.

but will now change it into what you probably intended:

A boy saw a girl.

UNTITLED files

If KEDIT for Windows is started and no fileid is specified, a temporary file called UNTITLED.1 is opened. The UNTITLED.1 file is handled the same way as in popular Windows applications like Word and Excel. For example, if you begin to edit another file but have not altered UNTITLED.1 it is automatically removed from the ring, and UNTITLED files must be given a permanent name before you can save them to disk. The File New menu item also creates UNTITLED files.

Alt+X key

The default Alt+X key assignment has been enhanced. When you are working with a file other than a DIR.DIR file and the cursor is in the file area, Alt+X will now edit the file named at the cursor position. For example, if you are editing a C program with the line

#include <local.h>

you can now put place the cursor on ``local.h'' and press Alt+X to edit that file.

Saving empty files

When you attempt to save an empty file to disk, text mode KEDIT accepts the command but does not actually update the file on disk. In KEDIT for Windows empty files are now saved to disk in the same way as other files; the result is a disk file zero bytes in size.