DP Tool Club 3/CDASC03.ISO/sorties/1819/viet/vmore.doc

Text File | 1993-04-01 | 5KB | 122 lines

\V
                              VMORE

          Copyright 1991 by Ho`a G. Nguye^~n and Nhu+-Nga` T. DDo^~
               P.O\. Box 3834, La Mesa, CA 91944-3834
                    _________________________

     VMORE is a file-reading utility like Unix' "more", but takes
pseudo-Vietnamese as input.    Several  input styles can be used.
Executing VMORE without any parameter will display a help message
to guide you through it.  The normal usage of VMORE is:

               vmore [-options] sourcefile [destination file]

     If you only supply one parameter after VMORE, for example

               vmore xxx

then VMORE  takes the file xxx,  which  is assumed  to  be in the
format used  on Viet-net and the newsgroup soc.culture\.vietnamese
(SCV), and displays it page-by-page, in "true"  Vietnamese, using
the VIE^'T font SCRFONT.   You can use the space key to move ahead,
"b" to move back, and "q" to quit.

     If a destination file name is supplied,  the output is  also
stored there\.

     The options are: (options can be combined, for example, -en)

     p,P  :   reverse   conversion   from  a  VIE^'T  file  to  the
              SCV/Viet-net format, for posting.

     e,E  :   unambiguous  conversion from a VIE^'T file to a 7-bit
              format for  electronic mailing.

     m,M  :   opposite of  e\.   Reconvert from the unambiguous 7-
              bit format to a VIE^'T file\.

     n,N  :   no display (just   convert  and  store--\destination
              file is required).

     NOTE:   while Vietnamese text is being displayed (in default
or -m mode), F2 and F3 can be used to change the display color to
suit your taste\.   The color chosen will be remembered for future
use\.

     The necessity for the "e"  and "m" options resulted from the
fact that   the SCV/Viet-net format is ambiguous.    For example,
"to\^."  can be interpreted  two ways.     VMORE  uses  a group of
heuristics to  reduce these ambiguities as much as possible,  but
they cannot be totally eliminated.   For example, to tell whether
the dot is a period or da^'u na(.ng, VMORE uses this heuristic:

     *  It scans ahead for the next printing character,  skipping
over spaces and clause-ending marks such as ),},],>.

     *   If  the  next character  is  a  lowercase,  the  dot  is
interpreted as a da^'u na(.ng.

     * If   the next character  is  uppercase,  we have   another
problem.     For example:    in  "cu\.  Ca\`ng",   the dot  can  be
interpreted both  ways.    Here   VMORE uses a typing rule we all
(hopefully) have learned in  our high-school typing class:  put 2
spaces  after a sentence-ending punctuation mark!   Thus if there
are more than 1 space between the dot and the  uppercase  letter,
the dot is interpreted as a period, else it's a da^'u na(.ng.

     *  There are a hosts of other rules just to handle  the dot,
including the  cases when the next character is a digit,  certain
punctuation marks, or there are line-feeds in between, etc.   One
case that VMORE still  doesn't deal with  very effectively is the
presence of ellipses (...  or ....).  For  now,  we will have  to
settle with placing a space before ellipses.

     This ambiguity points to the  need for an  umbiguous  coding
scheme for data interchange\.   The  scheme we  have adopted  here
(for the  m and  e  options)  is  the  TriChlor/Viet-Std  quoted-
readable  7-bit format (thanks  to  the TriChlor  group for their
help in this interface).  Thus not only is unambiguous electronic
mail available between PC users,  it is also available between PC
and Unix  domains  (with TriChlor's Unix  programs at  the  other
end).

     (For those curious souls,  with the -e option, VMORE convert
the file to the \\V mode and ad\ded a \\V to the front of the  file;
with the -m option, VMORE can convert both the \\M and the \\V-type
data to VIE^'T format.)

     Helpful  hint for composing messages for posting using VIE^'T:
since there is  an  expansion from  VIE^'T  format  to SCV/Viet-net
format,   you  should  set  the right   margin  at  60 or   less,
and  set justification to NO,  for a nice output after conversion
by VMORE\.


CONVENTIONS:

     In converting SCV/Viet-net messages to VIE^'T,   VMORE accepts
the following characters:

             Character              Interpreted as

               ' /                      da^'u sa('c
               ` \\                      da^'u huye^`n
               ?                        da^'u ho?i
               ~                        da^'u nga~
               .                        da^'u na(.ng
               ( <                      da^'u a(
               ^                        da^'u a^
               + *                      da^'u o+
               d\d -\d                    dd

     Although the  quotation  mark (") is   sometimes  used    by
SCV/Viet-net posters as "da^'u o+",  its use is discouraged since it
is also commonly used in its proper role--as quotation marks--and
dual use  creates  ambiguities that are  unresolvable (since it's
not a sentence ending mark).

     In  reverse translation  (-p option),  VMORE uses the  first
character of each group in the left column above\.