> But what they heck, I don't care much anyway: Music Publisher 5 supports a
subset of natural abc anyway and it's not
> really aimed at the abc user anyway so if the format is too much trouble I
won't use it. It just seems crazy to me to use any
> binary format in these days of large and fast storage; fast processors and
particularly in a multi-platform format.
What language is Music Publisher 5 written in? What OS?
I ask because I'd like to make the output format convenient for everyone who
wants to read ABC.
Besides, I think we are talking about slightly different things. Here's my
vision for the parser:
Depending on the OS and language, there will probably be a different
structure for how this fits together.
1) If the language is C or C++, you can just compile and link the parser
into your program. You would use it by calling the parsing function with an
ASCII string containing ABC, and it would return "something" that would be
easy to iterate through.
2) If your linker can link in a C module with your program, you would link
and use it as above. Some kind soul might write some "access functions" to
make it more convenient to use in your language.
3) If you can't link the module in, but are running on Windows, there would
be a stand alone parser program that you can access with COM. you would use
it the same as above, once you connect to it.
4) If none of the above applies, then perhaps some kind soul can write the
"glue" to make it work.
Now, the parser function itself would not load or save files. It is purely a
memory based function.
It would be up to the client to do something with the output. Here are some
possible clients:
1) Conversion Program: read an ABC file from disk, run it though the parser,
iterate through the parser's output to write a different format to a new
file.
2) Notational Program: read an ABC file from disk, run it though the parser,
iterate though the parser's output to create sheet music.
3) Player Program: read an ABC file from disk, run it though the parser,
iterate though the parser's output to create a MIDI file.
4) Analyzer Program: read an ABC file from disk, run it though the parser,
iterate though the parser's output to collect whatever statistics are of
interest. A simple example is just getting the title for a table of
contents. A more complex example is to look for simularities between tunes.
A transposing program is another example.
It is also possible to create more than one type of output if a single
structure is not adaquate. For instance, MusicXML files are either
score-wise or part-wise. That is probably a good thing to emulate. We can
also create different output for different languages if that turns out to be
easier. For C++, the output most naturally would be some kind of STL
container, for Pascal and C a structure might be best, perhaps an
INI-file-like format would be easier for you.
----
Also, Christian, I went to SourceForge, but the only way I could see of
subscribing was to subscribe to SourceForge itself. That appears to cost
some money. Is there a way to just be part of the AlphabetSoup group for
free?
Paul Rosen
--- Life is a musical, every once in a while
the plot stops and you start singing and dancing ---
http://home.earthlink.net/~catharsis.music/
http://home.earthlink.net/~theplums/
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