Digital Battlefield Reports

Mk wrote:

--Not that I was taking a defensive stance or anything; just if you got
some
--ideas, thoughts, suggestions, etc, about improving the reports - feed
me!!
--I'm willing to do what I can but want to still keep them
human-readable.

The solution Alun used was to use AWK to reformat the Mk reports into a
computer 
readable form. I'm using the same method for the current Scott Field
pbem game.

Basically its impossible to get everyone to agree on a standard FT
report and 
the requirements for humans and computers are orthogonal. My strategy
now is to 
have a single computer readable FT format and to translate all the
myriad report 
styles to it using AWK/Java/Perl etc. (AFAIK some version of AWK's
available on 
platforms including VMS - Mac?)

This strategy works well in my place of work where we have to translate
vector 
data into & out of editing systems (DXF,DGN etc.). Architecturally its
the best 
solution and creates the least amout of work. Believe me, I've been
working in 
this field for some years now. If we could standardise the human
readable form 
then the number of filters to write would be less. 

FYI - we have VMS too and it has Motif and behaves like any other
X-server?

Tim Jones