Installing Dada engine

Despard

Despard

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I'm trying to run the dada engine (to generate random text based on rules) but I can't seem to get it to work. I've downloaded the source code, run ./configure, make and sudo make install. It's installed everything I need.

But when I try to run it - no output. I can make the pb program, which is the text generator, work fine if I include commands which don't involve the C preprocessor. The user interface, dada, contains the following code:

Code:

Code: 
#!/bin/sh
# User interface/wrapper for the Dada Engine
# Author:    acb
# Commenced: 14-7-1995

PBDIR="/usr/local/bin"
DADAROOT="/usr/local/lib/dada"
CPP=""

#CPP="/lib/cpp"
#CPPARGS="-lang-c++"
FILES=""
#PB="`dirname $0`/pb"
#INCLUDE="-I`dirname $0`/include -I$DADAROOT/include"
PB="${PBDIR}/pb"
INCLUDE="-I${DADAROOT}/include"

while test $# -gt 0
do
  case $1 in
    -D*) CPPARGS="$1 $CPPARGS";;
    -o) PBARGS="$PBARGS $1 $2"; shift;;
    -p) PBARGS="$PBARGS $1";;
    -r) PBARGS="$PBARGS $1 $2"; shift;;
    -s) PBARGS="$PBARGS $1 $2"; shift;;
    -w) PBARGS="$PBARGS $1 $2"; shift;;
    *) CPPARGS="$CPPARGS $1";;
  esac
  shift
done

($CPP $INCLUDE $CPPARGS 2>/dev/null) | $PB $PBARGS

I'm sure there must be a problem with a path in there somewhere or something. I tried changing the empty "" in line 8 to "/usr/bin/cpp", the location of cpp, and I got some output then... but various scripts give runtime or other errors now!

Anyone got any ideas?
 
I don't know about dada, but...

($CPP $INCLUDE $CPPARGS 2>/dev/null) | $PB $PBARGS

and

$CPP =
$INCLUDE = -I$/usr/local/lib/dada/include
$CPPARGS =
$PB = /usr/local/bin/pb
$PBARGS = depends on input flag (-o, -p, -r, -s, or -w) and command line args

Right away we see that it needs you to define CPP.

I have no idea what you pass as PBARGS or CPPARGS?

Hmmm according to the data manual http://dev.null.org/dadaengine/manual-1.0/dada_toc.html you call this script with:

dada myscript.pb

Which says to me that in the most simple example you are trying to call

/usr/bin/cpp -I$/usr/local/lib/dada/include myscript.pb 2>/dev/null | /usr/local/bin/pb

Sorry that I can't help more, but the dada manual isn't very helpful (for me). Maybe you can download example *.pb files?
 
I just downloaded dada and there's a dozen example scripts in "dada-1.03/scripts/" and "dada-1.03/scripts/test/"

There also is a man page for both dada and pb.

Try one of these scripts and see if it works...
 
PBARGS and CPPARGS are defined in the while loop of the dada user interface program, and come from the command line.

As I said, I changed line 8 to
Code: 
CPP="/usr/bin/cpp"
which produces output.

I've tried a couple of the scripts, and most of them work but there are some problems. I get these error messages for the following scripts:

dada-1.03/scripts/test/

codetest.pb: bus error
concattest.pb: undefined variable `c'
repeattest.pb: undefined variable `foo'

dada-1.03/scripts/

crackpot.pb: undefined variable `PLAIN_footnotes'
manifesto.pb: undefined variable `pointnum'
pomo.pb: bus error

I can't work out what's wrong. :(
 
The contents of concattest.pb is four lines

s: { res="\n" ; c=0 } a $res ;

a: a b | a c | b | c ;

b: $c { res=res+"foo" ; c=c+1 };

c: $c { res=res+"bar" ; c=c+1 };

Apparently there is something wrong with line 1 because c is undefined when you get to the lower lines, per your message.

What does the manual say about the syntax? Is there a typo on this line?
 
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