bash$ man diff
	bash$ diff -b --ignore-all-space originalfile formattedfile
        

Generate the object code from the original input source code using the compiler -

	  g++ -c myprogram.cpp
        

Here g++ is GNU C++ compiler. This will create object output myprogram.o

Save this file -

	   mv myprogram.o myprogram_orig.o
        

Now run bcpp -

	   bcpp myprogram.cpp
        

This will create the formatted output program file myprogram.cpp and move the original file to myprogram.cpp.orig. Compile the new file with -

	   g++ -c myprogram.cpp
        

Now use the unix 'diff' command to compare the two object files -

	   diff myprogram.o myprogram_orig.o
        

Both these files MUST BE IDENTICAL . This verifies that bcpp is working perfectly. On DOS or Windows 95 you may want to use the free Cygnus Cygwin 'diff' or 'MKS' utilities.

If for some reason you are not able to diff the object files then you MUST use the assembly output as described below.

You can use the assembler output instead of object output from the C++ compiler for doing the comparison. Like -

	    g++ -S myprogram.cpp
        

This creates myprogram.s. Verify with -

	    diff myprogram.s myprogram_orig.s
        

This step gives 100[percnt] guarantee that your valuable source code is intact and bcpp is JUST doing ONLY formatting and is NOT changing or damaging your code in any way. This method gives you 100[percnt] quality assurance and life term or long term WARRANTY on beautifier programs like 'bcpp', 'cb' or 'indent'.

It is strongly recommended that you do these two steps every time you run beautifier programs like bcpp , indent or cb .

Since you cannot compile the Java source code to machine code and you can compile Java source to byte-codes you cannot use the technique given in Method 2 above. When you do diff on Java class files it will always be different.

In this method, a different technique will be given which can be used to validate any beautifier program for Java. Also this method is quite powerful and can be used to validate any beautifier program for any language like C, C++, PERL, SQL, HTML or Java. Since all beautifier program simply rearrange or insert whitespaces , you can strip all the whitespaces from original source file and dump it to a file called verify1.out and strip all the whitespaces from beautified source file and dump it to a file called verify2.out. Now, do a diff on verify1.out and verify2.out. If there is no difference, then beautifier program is working properly. The method is not 100[percnt] perfect and can catch atleast 98[percnt] of the errors/bugs in the beautifier program. Use this method in conjunction with other methods. But this method is better than not having a verification at all and blindly trusting the beautifier program!!

Note: A whitespace can be one of following - blank space ' ', form-feed '\f', newline '\n', carriage return '\r', horizontal tab '\t' or vertical tab '\v'.

	bash$ java StripWhitespaces  sample.java > verify1.out
	bash$ java StripWhitespaces  sample_beutified.java > verify2.out
	bash$ diff verify1.out verify2.out
	bash$ java StripWhitespaces  sample.cpp > verify1.out
	bash$ java StripWhitespaces  sample_beutified.cpp > verify2.out
	bash$ diff verify1.out verify2.out
	bash$ java StripWhitespaces  sample.sql > verify1.out
	bash$ java StripWhitespaces  sample_beutified.sql > verify2.out
	bash$ diff verify1.out verify2.out
        

The source code of StripWhitespaces Java program is not given here. It is left as an exercise for students (you) to write a small program in Java which will simply strip whitespaces from the input text file and output to standard console output. Students are also urged to write this small program (StripWhitespaces) in C, PERL, Unix shell script (Korn, Bourne) and AWK script. Students can see howto the same task can be accomplished in these five different languages and can do comparison of ease of programing. You should put a newline '\n' character after every 50 characters while generating verify1.out and verify2.out so that when you do a diff you can see on which lines differences are coming up. Otherwise, verify*.out files will just contain one line and it will be difficult to pin-point where exactly the beautifier program is failing (got this point ???).

This is a Korn shell script to verify beautifier program. Requires "pdksh*.rpm" from Linux 'contrib' cdrom. Save this file as 'text' file and chmod a+rx on it. You can re-write this shell script in PERL so that you can use it on Window 95/NT or MSDOS. Uncomment the PRGM variable to point to bcpp , cb or indent

	#!/bin/ksh
	# Verification program to check C++ Beautifiers 'bcpp', 'indent' or cb
	############################################################
	# Copyright 
	# The copyright policy is GNU/GPL.
	# Author: Al Dev (Alavoor Vasudevan) alavoor[AT]yahoo.com
	############################################################
	check_beautify_now()
	{
		# Remove all the temp files....
		\rm -f ${TMP_FILE}
		\rm -f ${TMP_CPPFILE}*.*
		FNAME=$1
		if [ ! -f ${FNAME} ]; then
			print "\nError: The file ${FNAME} does not exist!!. Aborting now ...."
			exit
		fi
		\cp  -f ${FNAME} ${TMP_CPPFILE}.cpp
		${COMPILER} -c ${TMP_CPPFILE}.cpp
		if [ ! -f ${TMP_CPPFILE}.o ]; then
			print "Fatal Error: Failed to compile ${FNAME}. Aborting now... "
			exit
		fi
		\mv -f ${TMP_CPPFILE}.o ${TMP_CPPFILE}_orig.o
		aa=`basename $PRGM`
		print "\nRunning, verifying $aa on ${FNAME}"
		${PRGM} ${TMP_CPPFILE}.cpp
		${COMPILER} -c ${TMP_CPPFILE}.cpp
		\rm -f $TMP_FILE
		diff ${TMP_CPPFILE}.o ${TMP_CPPFILE}_orig.o 1> $TMP_FILE 2>> $TMP_FILE
		result=""
		result=`wc -c $TMP_FILE | awk '{print $1}' `
		if [ "$result" = "0" ]; then
			print "Success!! Beautifier $aa is working properly!!\n"
		else
			print "Fatal Error: Something wrong!! Beautifier is not working!!"
			exit
		fi
	#	${COMPILER} -S ${TMP_CPPFILE}.cpp
	#	diff ${TMP_CPPFILE}.s ${TMP_CPPFILE}_orig.s
		# Remove all the temp files....
		\rm -f ${TMP_FILE}
		\rm -f ${TMP_CPPFILE}*.*
	}
	########## Main of program begins here ##################3
	#PRGM=/usr/bin/bcpp
	#PRGM=/usr/bin/cb
	PRGM=/usr/bin/indent
	COMPILER=/usr/bin/g++
	TMP_FILE=beautify.tmp
	TMP_CPPFILE=beautify-tmp_cppfile
	print -n "Enter the C++ file name <default is *.cpp> : "
	read ans
	if [ "$ans" = "" -o "$ans" = " " ]; then
		ans="ALL"
	else
		FILENAME=$ans
	fi
	# Remove all the temp files....
	\rm -f ${TMP_FILE}
	\rm -f ${TMP_CPPFILE}*.*
	if [ "$ans" != "ALL" ]; then
		check_beautify_now ${FILENAME}
	else
		ls *.cpp |
		while read FILENAME 
		do
			check_beautify_now ${FILENAME}
		done
	fi
        

This script was originally written by Kevin M. Dunn kdunn@hsc.edu Department of Chemistry Hampden-Sydney College HSC, VA 23943 (804) 223-6181 (804) 223-6374 (Fax). And this script here was modified and enhanced by Al Dev alavoor[AT]yahoo.com.

Several people have discussed the use of Tidy to indent sgml and xml sources, but does not work for SGML documents, as Tidy did not recognize the entities. Rather than fix Tidy, here is the perl script to indent anything with sgml-type tags. Only non-empty tags are indented, and text is justified at 80 characters/line (easily changed).

Known problems: will break line-specific enviroments. So far, the script is quite general--it does not recognize specific tags and so could be used for any xml or sgml, not just docbook. Is there any way to recognize literal text independent of DTD? Leading whitespace, for example? Trailing whitespace? Or I could indent tags only, and leave all non-tag text unjustified and unindented.

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
#
# sb: the sgml beautifier
# indents non-empty sgml tags
# usage: sb filename or sb < filename or | sb
# author: Kevin M. Dunn (kdunn@hsc.edu), Modified by Al Dev (alavoor[AT]yahoo.com)
# license: anyone is free to use this for any purpose whatever
#
use strict;
use diagnostics;
	  
sub separate_tags 
{
	@_ < 1 ?  die "\nInsufficient args .. " : 0 ;
	my ($tmpfile) = @_;
	my ($current_line);
	open(FILETMP, ">$tmpfile");
	while (<>)
	{
		$current_line = $_;
		#if ($current_line =~ /^\s+$/)
		if ($current_line eq "\n")
		{
			# Pad spaces to distinguish/identify this line with other newlines
			# so that this line is printed and not bypassed in indent_tags()
			$current_line = "\t  " . $current_line;  # Prepend with spaces
			#print "\ndone padding\n";
			#sleep 5;
		}
		#$_ =~ s/^\s+//;  # Left trim the leading white spaces - ltrim
		#$_ =~ s/\s+$//;  # Right trim the trailing white spaces - rtrim
		$current_line =~ s/</\n</g;  # Put newline before start of tag "<"
		$current_line =~ s/>/>\n/g;  # Put newline after end of tag ">"
		print FILETMP "$current_line";
	}
	close(FILETMP);
}
	  
sub get_tags 
{
	@_ < 1 ?  die "\nInsufficient args .. " : 0 ;
	my ($tmpfile) = @_;
	open(FILETMP, "$tmpfile");
	my ($word);
	while (<FILETMP>)
	{
		$word = $_;
		$word =~ s/[> ].*//; 
		chomp($word);
		if ( $word =~ /^<\/.*/ )
		{
			$sgb::tag2{$word} = 1; # here the word has something like '</TITLE'
			$word =~ s/\///;  
			$sgb::tag1{$word} = 1; # here the word has something like '<TITLE'
		}
	}
}
	  
sub indent_tags 
{
	@_ < 1 ?  die "\nInsufficient args .. " : 0 ;
	my ($tmpfile) = @_;
	my $jl = 80; #text will be justified to 80 characters/line
	my $nl = 0;
	my $sp = 0;
	my @space;
	$space[0] = "";
	  
	my $newline = ""; # hack to prevent extraneous blank first line
	  
	open(FILETMP, "$tmpfile");
	my ($current_line, $word, $saveword);
	while (<FILETMP>)
	{
		chomp($_); # avoid \n on last field
		$current_line = $_;
		$word = $current_line;
		$word =~ s/[> ].*//;  # truncate trailing "> " and spaces therafter
		if ( $sgb::tag1{$word} )
		{
			$saveword = $word;
			print "\n$space[$sp]$current_line";
			$nl = $jl; # force new line on next line of input
			$sp++;
			if ( ! $space[$sp] )
			{
				$space[$sp] = $space[$sp-1] . "  ";
			}
		}
		elsif ( $sgb::tag2{$word} )
		{
			$saveword = $word;
			$sp--;
			# If the tag is <ProgramListing> then do not justify...
			if (lc($word) eq "</programlisting")
			{
				print "$current_line";
			}
			else
			{
				print "\n$space[$sp]$current_line";
			}
			$nl = $jl; # force new line on next line of input
		}
		elsif ( $word =~ /<.*/ ) 
		{
			$saveword = $word;
			print "$newline$space[$sp]$current_line";
			$newline = "\n"; # hack to prevent extraneous blank first line
			$nl = $jl; # force new line on next line of input
		}
		elsif ( length($current_line) > 0 ) 
		{
			# If the tag is <ProgramListing> then do not justify...
			if (lc($saveword) eq "<programlisting")
			{
				#print "\nthe tag1 word is $saveword----eof \n";
				#print "$newline$space[$sp]$current_line";
				# DO NOT put any tabs or spaces, because repeated running of this program
				# on same file will keep putting tabs or spaces.
				print "$newline$current_line";  
				$newline = "\n"; # hack to prevent extraneous blank first line
				$nl = $jl; # force new line on next line of input
			}
			else
			{
				$nl = justify($jl, $nl, $sp, $current_line, @space);
			}
		}
	}
}
	  
sub justify 
{
	@_ < 4 ?  die "\nInsufficient args .. " : 0 ;
	my ($jl, $nl, $sp, $current_line, @space) = @_;
	  
	my @words = split;
	my $nw = @words;
	for (my $i = 0; $i < $nw; $i++ )
	{
		$sgb::ll += length($words[$i]) + 1 + $nl; # line length if this word is added
		if ($sgb::ll < $jl) # if short enough, print it
		{ 
			print "$words[$i] ";
			$nl = 0;
		}
		else # if line is too long, start a new one
		{ 
			print "\n$space[$sp]$words[$i] ";
			$nl = 0;
			$sgb::ll = length($space[$sp] . $words[$i]) + 1;
		}
	}
	return $nl;
}
	  
$sgb::ll = 0; # global var
my $tmpfile = "$$.tmp";
separate_tags($tmpfile);
get_tags($tmpfile);
indent_tags($tmpfile);
unlink ("$tmpfile"); # remove temporary file
print "\n"; # add final line to output
	  
        

Download from "http://www.olea.org/tmp/indent-sgml-xml" . The author is at hector@debian.org And this script here was modified and enhanced by Al Dev alavoor[AT]yahoo.com.

The program below uses the XML::Parser. Read the online manual page with 'man XML::Parser::Expat' and also 'man XML::Parser'.

#!/usr/bin/perl -w 
#
	  
# Author: Hector (hector@debian.org). Modified by Al Dev (alavoor[AT]yahoo.com)
	  
# For documentation please see 'man XML::Parser::Expat' and 
# also see 'man XML::Parser'
	  
use diagnostics;
use XML::Parser::Expat;
	  
$|=1;
	  
if ( !$ARGV[0] ) 
{
       print "Argument missing\n";
       exit 1;
}
	  
$inline_tags = "acronym|ulink|link|citetitle|firstname|surname|application|guimenu|guisubmenu|guimenuitem|menuchoice|interface|guilabel|guibutton|glossterm|systemitem|filename|xref|emphasis|keycap|markup|email|command|inlinegraphic|entry|email|screeninfo|graphic";
$one_line = "title|member";
	  
$todo = "";
$temp = "";
$ancho = "  ";
$indentacion = 0;
	  
#open IN , "<$ARGV[0]";
#my $todo = join ('', <IN>);
#close (IN);
	  
$parser = new XML::Parser::Expat;
$parser->setHandlers('Start'   => \&inicio,
                     'End'     => \&fin,
		     		 'Char'    => \&cadena,
	             	 'Comment' => \&comentario);
	  
open(FOO, "$ARGV[0]") or die "Couldn't open";
	  
# If you get this type of error:
# syntax error at line 1, column 0, byte 0 at ../sgml-beautifier-indentar.pl line 37
# Then edit input file $ARGV[0] and change put this line -
# 	<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
$parser->parse(*FOO);
close(FOO);
	  
	  
$todo =~ s/\n+/\n/gm;
$todo =~ s/\n *\n/\n/gm;
print "$todo\n";
	  
exit 1;
	  
sub inicio
{
	my ($p, $el, %atts) = @_;
	my $tag = "<$el";
	foreach my $key ( sort %atts)
	{
		if ( $atts{$key} )
		{
			$tag .= " $key=\"$atts{$key}\"";
		}
	}
	$tag .= ">";
	  
	if ( !($el =~ /$inline_tags|$one_line/) )
	{
		$temp = &indentar ($temp, $indentacion);
		if ( $temp ) {
			$todo .= "$temp\n";
		}
		my $pad = $ancho x $indentacion;
		$todo .= "$pad$tag\n";
		$temp = "";
		$indentacion++;
	}
	else
	{
		$temp .= $tag;
	}
}
	  
sub fin
{
	my ($p, $el) = @_;
	my $tag = "</$el>";
	if ( !($el =~ /$inline_tags/) )
	{
		$temp = &indentar ($temp, $indentacion);
		$temp =~ s/\n$// ;
		$todo .= "$temp";
		if ( !($el =~ /$one_line/) )
		{
			$indentacion--;
			if ( !($todo =~ /\n$/) ) {
				$todo .= "\n";
			}
			my $pad = $ancho x $indentacion;
			$todo .= "$pad";
			#$indentacion--;
		}
		$todo .= "$tag\n";
		$temp = "";
		#		$indentacion++;
	}
	else
	{
		$temp .= "$tag";
	}
}
	  
sub cadena
{
	my ($p, $str) = @_;
	$str =~ s/ +/ /g;
	#$str =~ s/^ //;
	#$str =~ s/ $//;
	$temp .= "$str";
}
	  
sub comentario
{
	my ($p, $str) = @_;
	$todo .= "<!--\n $str \n-->\n";
}
		
																	    
sub indentar ()
{
	my $linea = $_[0] ;
	#	print ("Indentacion es $_[1]\nLinea $_[0]\n");
	my $indentacion = $_[1];
	my $cantidad = 75 - ( $indentacion * length($ancho));
	my $pad = $ancho x $indentacion;
	
	my $temp = &cortar_linea ( $linea, $cantidad);
	$temp =~ s/\n/\n$pad/g;
	$temp =~ s/^ //;
	my $resultado = "$pad$temp\n";
	return $resultado;
}
	  
sub cortar_linea ()
{
	my $linea = $_[0];
	#$linea =~ s/\n/ \n/;
	$linea .= " ";
	my $cantidad = $_[1];
	$temp = "";
	$temp2 = "";
	#print "Llega $linea\n";
	while ( $linea =~ /(.+?) / )
	{
		if ( (length ($temp) + length ($+)) <= $cantidad )
		{
			$temp .= "$+ ";
			$linea = $';
		}
		elsif ( length ($+) >= $cantidad ) 
		{
			$linea = $';
			$temp2 .= "$temp\n$+";
			$temp = "";
		}
		else
		{
			$temp2 .= "$temp\n";
			$temp = "$+ ";
			$linea = $';
		}
	}
	$temp2 .= "$temp\n";
	$temp2 =~ s/\n$//;
	$temp2 =~ s/ $//;
	#	print "Sale\n##$temp2##\n";
	return $temp2;
}
        

PDF file can be generated from postscript file using either acrobat distill or Ghostscript . And postscript file is generated from DVI which in turn is generated from LaTex file. You can download distill software from "http://www.adobe.com" . Given below is a sample session:

	bash$ man sgml2latex
	bash$ sgml2latex filename.sgml
	bash$ man dvips
	bash$ dvips -o filename.ps filename.dvi
	bash$ distill filename.ps
	bash$ man ghostscript
	bash$ man ps2pdf
	bash$ ps2pdf input.ps output.pdf
	bash$ acroread output.pdf &
        

Or you can use Ghostscript command ps2pdf . ps2pdf is a work-alike for nearly all the functionality of Adobe's Acrobat Distiller product: it converts PostScript files to Portable Document Format (PDF) files. ps2pdf is implemented as a very small command script (batch file) that invokes Ghostscript, selecting a special "output device" called pdfwrite . In order to use ps2pdf, the pdfwrite device must be included in the makefile when Ghostscript was compiled; see the documentation on building Ghostscript for details.

This document is written in linuxdoc SGML format. The Docbook SGML format supercedes the linuxdoc format and has lot more features than linuxdoc. The linuxdoc is very simple and is easy to use. To convert linuxdoc SGML file to Docbook SGML use the program ld2db.sh and some perl scripts. The ld2db output is not 100[percnt] clean and you need to use the clean[lowbar]ld2db.pl perl script. You may need to manually correct few lines in the document.

The ld2db.sh is not 100[percnt] clean, you will get lots of errors when you run

		bash$ ld2db.sh file-linuxdoc.sgml db.sgml
		bash$ cleanup.pl db.sgml > db_clean.sgml
		bash$ gvim db_clean.sgml 
		bash$ docbook2html db.sgml
        

And you may have to manually edit some of the minor errors after running the perl script. For e.g. you may need to put closing tag < /Para> for each < Listitem>

You can convert the SGML howto document to Microsoft Windows Help file, first convert the sgml to html using:

		bash$ sgml2html xxxxhowto.sgml     (to generate html file)
		bash$ sgml2html -split 0   xxxxhowto.sgml (to generate a single page html file)
        

Then use the tool HtmlToHlp . You can also use sgml2rtf and then use the RTF files for generating winhelp files.

In order to view the document in dvi format, use the xdvi program. The xdvi program is located in tetex-xdvi*.rpm package in Redhat Linux which can be located through ControlPanel [verbar] Applications [verbar] Publishing [verbar] TeX menu buttons. To read dvi document give the command -

          xdvi -geometry 80x90 howto.dvi man xdvi 
        

And resize the window with mouse. To navigate use Arrow keys, Page Up, Page Down keys, also you can use 'f', 'd', 'u', 'c', 'l', 'r', 'p', 'n' letter keys to move up, down, center, next page, previous page etc. To turn off expert menu press 'x'.

You can read postscript file using the program 'gv' (ghostview) or 'ghostscript'. The ghostscript program is in ghostscript*.rpm package and gv program is in gv*.rpm package in Redhat Linux which can be located through ControlPanel [verbar] Applications [verbar] Graphics menu buttons. The gv program is much more user friendly than ghostscript. Also ghostscript and gv are available on other platforms like OS/2, Windows 95 and NT, you view this document even on those platforms.

To read postscript document give the command -

          gv howto.ps ghostscript howto.ps 
        

You can read HTML format document using Netscape Navigator, Microsoft Internet explorer, Redhat Baron Web browser or any of the 10 other web browsers.

You can read the latex, LyX output using LyX a X-Windows front end to latex.