PPWIZARD is a free preprocessor for HTML, REXX, Visual Basic or any text files.

Rexx

REXX is a very powerful interpreted programming language. While you don't need to know much about rexx to use PPWIZARD you will find that you can do so much more if you do. There is a lot of 3rd party support for rexx, not only for OS/2 but for windows as well.

You can get a (slighty out of date) regina rexx manual from http://sites.netscape.net/ssatguru, this has HTML and compiled Windows Help formats for download.

This program is written in rexx and has specific commands that allow you to embed rexx code. The following situations allow you to execute rexx code (some other minor situations as well):

1. #if commands.
2. #evaluate commands.
3. #import filters.
4. <?=RexxExpression> "standard definition".
5. In the CompareReplaceFixed() routine.

For OS/2 users an online rexx manual was installed for you (by OS/2 install process). Otherwise you can get a copy of the regina documentation from http://www.lightlink.com/hessling/

There is a DebugLevel option of REXXTRACE that you can turn on or off to control level of debugging output from the rexx commands you execute. Regina's debugging is not as good as OS/2's native debugging but it's still a help.

The following sections provide a very small summary of rexx, for people unfamiliar with programming this may not be enough and you may need to look elsewhere. A good place to ask questions or just sit back and watch is the news group "comp.lang.rexx".

Some Examples of Rexx Code Integration

Some simple one liners:

    ;--- Capture some HTML information ---
    #evaluate ShortNameHtml            "_filespec('name', '<?OutputFile>')"
    #evaluate ShortNameHtmlLowerCase   "ToLowerCase('<$ShortNameHtml>')"
    
    ;--- Capture date/time information ---
    #evaluate DateTime @date('WeekDay') || ' ' || date('Month') || ' ' || substr(date('Sorted'), 7, 2) || ' ' || left(date('Sorted'), 4) || ' at ' || time('Civil')@
    

More complex example where multi statement rexx is formatted in a very readable manner (using #DefineRexx):

    #DefineRexx IMPORT_RECORD_FILTER
                if Column.1 = "Wendy" then
                   Remove='This is "Wendy" record'    ;;Don't want this record
                else
                   Column.1 = translate(Column.1)     ;;Make column #1 upper case
    #DefineRexx
    #import ImportMe.CMA CMA "" "First<BR>Name" "Surname" "Job"

PPWIZARD Manual

Thursday January 17 2002 at 6:27pm