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SOUPR Functional Description
SOUPR (SOftware Update Package Revisited) is a package
which was written to ease the task of software
maintenance. The design of SOUPR allows the
distribution of small correction files to update
field-image software sources. Also present is the
ability to automatically merge user modifications with
DEC-supplied updates/fixes. SOUPR correction files may
be edited directly and the output of SOUPR is ready for
immediate assembly/compilation.
SOUPR is a collection of three programs: COMPAR,
UPDATE, and MERGE. The following is a brief
description of each program.
1. COMPAR
The input to COMPAR consists of two ASCII files known
as the base file and the user file. COMPAR will
compare the two files and create a correction file.
The correction file details how the user file differs
from the base file. The command format is:
*cor-file=base-file,user-file/switches
2. UPDATE
UPDATE will reconstruct the user file. The input to
UPDATE consists of a base file and a correction file.
The command format is:
*user-file=base-file,cor-file/switches
3. MERGE
MERGE will merge several correction files into a single
correction file and flag any conflicts. The command
format is:
*cor-file=cor-file/switches,cor-file/switches...
Page 2
SOUPR Source File Format
SOUPR may be used with any ASCII file. The file is not
parsed in any way. Binary files (such as REL files and
SAVE files) may not be used. Any text editor may be
used to alter the input file for COMPAR.
Each line in the source file is identified internally
by the notation "n/m". Where n is the line number, and
m is the page number.
A line is an arbitrary sequence of ASCII characters
terminated by a break character. The break character
itself is considered to be part of the line. In the
case of consecutive break characters, each character is
considered to be a separate line. The following are
defined to be break characters:
12 LF Line Feed
13 VT Vertical Tab
14 FF Form Feed
32 ^Z control Z
33 ESC ESCape
A page is an arbitrary sequence of lines terminated by
a form feed. The form feed itself is considered to be
the last character of the last line of the previous
page. Since form feeds are usually preceded by
<CR><LF>, the form feed is usually the only character
in its line.
SOUPR will ignore the line sequence numbers generated
by SOS.
Page 3
SOUPR Correction File Format
Each line in the correction file is prefixed by a
special character. This character determines which of
three categories the line falls into:
1. Commands to SOUPR (see below). All commands are
prefixed by a space (ASCII 40).
2. Text to be acted upon by the commands. Each line of
text is prefixed by a tab (ASCII 11). Except for its
use as a delimiter, the tab is ignored.
3. In the event that a line fails to be prefixed by either
a space or a tab, the line is regarded as text. The
first character, whatever it may be, is considered to
be part of the text.
Page 4
SOUPR Commands
1. DELETE n/m ;comment
text
Delete text starting at line n of page m. The text to
be deleted follows immediately after the DELETE
command, and continues until a space is encountered in
column one (i.e. another command). If the text at
line n of page m in the base file is different from the
text in the correction file, UPDATE will flag the
condition as an error.
2. INSERT n/m ;comment
text
Insert text just before line n of page m. The text to
be inserted follows immediately after the INSERT
command, and continues until a space is encountered in
column one.
3. REPLACE n/m ;comment
text1
WITH
text2
At line n of page m replace text1 with text2. Text1
follows immediately after the REPLACE command, and
continues until a space is encountered in column one.
This line will be the WITH auxiliary command. Text2
follows immediately after the WITH command, and
continues until a space is encountered in column one.
If the text at line n of page m in the base file is
different from text1 in the correction file, UPDATE
will flag the condition as an error.
4. SUM n ;comment
Where n is a rotate add one checksum of the base file.
While processing the base file, UPDATE will recompute
this checksum. If the value does not match that stored
in the correction file, UPDATE will flag the condition
as an error. Hence a user is prevented from
accidentally using the correction file with an
incorrect version of the base file. MERGE will type an
error message if a user attempts to merge correction
files with different checksums. The SUM command marks
end of file.
5. ;comment
Ignored.
Page 5
NOTE
All keywords (e.g. DELETE, INSERT, REPLACE,
WITH, and SUM) may be abbreviated to the
smallest unambiguous form (currently one
letter).
MERGE goes to a great deal of trouble to make conflicts
easy to resolve. The begining and ending of each
conflict is clearly labeled and numbered. For example,
a section of the correction file might appear as:
;***BEGINING OF CONFLICT 3***
DEL 66/5
JRST FOO
REP 66/5
JRST FOO
WIT
;FALL TO ROUTINE FOO
;***END OF CONFLICT 3***
The programmer can quickly see that both patches
attempted. to do the same thing, they merely did it in
different ways. The object was to remove the JRST at
line 66 of page 5. The first patch tried the
straightforward approach, it merely deleted the line.
The second patch attempted to replace the line with a
comment. But MERGE doesn't realize that the patches
are equivalent. MERGE will type a warning message that
conflicts exist. The programmer must type out the
correction file and study the conflicts. In this case,
he merely decides which patch he wishes to use and
removes the other. This sort of "conflict", by the
way, is quite common. It's nice to know that even when
conflicts do occur, they are usually easy to resolve.
Page 6
SOUPR Switches
One of the most powerful features of SOUPR is the
conditionals facility. To use this facility each
command in the correction file is labeled with a sixbit
name. The correction file is then regarded as a
library of patches. Each patch is refered to by name.
The user may specify which patches from the library are
to be used.
Labels are placed at the end of a statement, and are
preceded by a semicolon. E.G.:
INS 3/4 ;XYZBUG SPR#3141
Those of you who are familiar with MACRO will recognize
the label as a cross between a comment and a TITLE.
The label resembles a comment in that it may contain
any information that the user feels would be helpful.
The label resembles a TITLE in that the first word is
taken as the name of the module. Thus in the example
above, the name of the patch is "XYZBUG". The
following is a list of data that one might wish to
include in a comment:
1. Patch name
2. SPR number
3. MCO/PCO number
4. Edit number
5. Brief description
Labels are added to patches by using the /NAME switch
in COMPAR. The switch has two forms:
/NAME:"string"
/NAME:foo
The former is used to specify an entire string. The
later is used to specify just a sixbit name.
The following is a list of switches used to select
which patches from the library are to be used. Both
UPDATE and MERGE have each of the switches:
/NCLUDE:x Processing includes only those
patches labeled with x. Wildcards
are legal. The default is * (i.e.
include all patches).
/NCLUDE:(x,y,...) Specifies a list of patches to be
included
/UNCLUD Unlabeled patches are always
included (default)
Page 7
/UXCLUD Unlabeled patches are always
excluded
/XCLUDE:x Processing excludes those patches
labeled with x
/XCLUDE:(x,y,...) Specifies a list of patches to be
excluded
Another feature allows the COMPAR program to associate
an internally created label with every change
encountered during a single compare function. This is
not the same as each patch being identifiable. A
single patch may create multiple code changes and
multiple concurrent patches would result in logically
one code change.
This feature is called by adding a /NUM or /LET switch
to a COMPAR command which has a /NAME: switch.
Page 8
SOUPR Examples
1. To create a labeled patch:
.R COMPAR
*cor-file=base-file,user-file/NAME:foo
2. To apply a single patch:
.R UPDATE
*user-file=base-file,cor-file/NCLUDE:foo
3. To apply all but a single patch:
.R UPDATE
*user-file=base-file,cor-file/XCLUDE:foo
4. To add a new patch to the library:
.R MERGE
*new-library=old-library,new-patch
5. To remove a patch from the library:
.R MERGE
*new-library=old-library/XCLUDE:foo
6. To extract a patch from the library:
.R MERGE
*cor-file=library/NCLUDE:foo
Page 9
SOUPR - Applying Local Source Edits
SOUPR, as described above, has the ability to merge
edits. The UPDATE module requires a known base file.
DEC provides updates which can be used by SOUPR
directly only on the last DEC release. The SOUPR tool,
however, can be used to merge local edits prior to
using UPDATE.
The process of applying local edits calls for the
availability of the completely updated source module as
last released and updated by DEC. When an Autopatch
tape is received and you want to apply the supplied
corrections to your locally edited source file you can
use the following procedure:
1. Obtain the last DEC release of the source module.
2. Create a correction file by using COMPAR. The
above module is the base-file and the module with
local edits is the user-file.
3. Use MERGE to combine this correction file with the
one supplied by DEC. The MERGE program will flag
any conflicts. These must be resolved by editing
the correction file before going on to the next
step.
4. Use UPDATE to apply this combined correction file
to the base-file.