Provided by: aegis_4.24.3-3_amd64 
NAME
aegis - meta-data file format
DESCRIPTION
The files used by the aegis program all have the same format. Some of the files used by aegis are
created and maintained by humans, and some are created an maintained by aegis itself. The various
manual entries say which is which.
LEXICAL CONSIDERATIONS
Names are any C identifier. Comments are C-style comments (or C++ or shell). Numbers are decimal,
octal or hexadecimal, as for C constants. Whitespace (spaces, tabs and newlines) are ignored except in
strings or as they serve to separate tokens.
Strings are C-style strings, and similar to C, sequential string constants are silently catenated
together.
In addition, there is a style of @string@ which use at-signs (@) for quoting. Unlike the C style of
string, newlines are allowed within these strings. To get an at-sign in such a string, double the at-
sign. There is no other escape mechanism available.
GRAMMAR
The format of all aegis files is described by a yacc (1) grammar.
%%
file
: field_list
;
A file contains a field list.
field_list
: /* empty */
| field_list field
;
A field list is zero or more fields.
field
: NAME '=' value ';'
;
A field is set by giving a name and a value.
value
: NAME
| INTEGER
| STRING
| structure
| list
;
A value may be a member of an enumeration (NAME), or an integer constant, or a literal string. More
complex values may be constructed from these simple values.
structure
: '{' field_list '}'
;
A structure is a grouped list of fields.
list
: '[' list_body ']'
;
list_body
: /* empty */
| value_list
| value_list ','
;
value_list
: value
| value_list ',' value
A list is a sequential list of values separated by commas. It may be empty, or it may have a trailing
comma.
SEMANTICS
The types of the values must match those in the definition of the file. See the relevant man pages for
more information.
Files which are rewritten by aegis will lose any comments placed in them. When time fields are emitted
by aegis they are usually followed by a human readable date in a comment.
SEE ALSO
aegis(1) a project change supervisor aecattr(5) change attribute file format aecstate(5) change state file format aedir(5) directory structures aegstate(5) aegis state file aepattr(5) project attribute file format aepconf(5) project configuration file format aepstate(5) project state file format aesub(5) available command substitutions aeuconf(5) user configuration file format aeustate(5) user state file format
COPYRIGHT
aegis version 4.24.3.D001
Copyright (C) 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005,
2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 Peter Miller
The aegis program comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details use the 'aegis -VERSion License'
command. This is free software and you are welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions; for
details use the 'aegis -VERSion License' command.
AUTHOR
Peter Miller E-Mail: millerp@canb.auug.org.au /\/\* WWW: http://www.canb.auug.org.au/~millerp/