MANIFESTS - how to use manifest files in BOFF.

Description:

The "ManiFests=filename" option on a BOFF command line is used to tell BOFF where to find a list of manifest constants for the program being examined. The given file contains manifest declarations in the standard form

name = expression;

The given expression must be a constant expression; thus it can only contain constants or manifest constants that were defined previously in the file.

There are a few small differences in the way that B treats manifests and the way in which they are handled in BOFF. In BOFF, each manifest declaration is used to create a BOFF variable which is then initialized to the given value. For example, if the manifest file contained

Z = 10;

a BOFF variable named "/Z" would be created and given the initial value of 10. (Note that you may omit the "/" in front of the name if there are no other symbols with that name.) Since this is a standard BOFF variable, its value may be changed during the course of the BOFF session. In B of course, manifest values may not be changed. Furthermore, B manifests are really textual entities rather than real data items; BOFF manifests are treated as ordinary variables. There is a slight incompatibility here, and it is conceivable that BOFF will not handle complicated manifest declarations in the way that B would; however, there will be no problem with simple manifests, and these will always be in the majority.

BOFF always handles manifest files before it does anything else. Thus the manifests are defined before symbol table files are read.

Manifests for most GCOS8 system data objects are defined in files under the directory "b/manif". For more information, see "expl b manifests".

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