I would say that the )DUMP format is in principle more APL-like than )SAVE.
However, there is an important use case for )SAVE which is not supported
by )DUMP: )SAVEing a workspace with a non-empty )SI stack and continuing
it at a later point in time (or on a different machine).
Simply renaming )DUMP to )SAVE would create an unnecessary incompatibility
that I would like to avoid. )LOADing a file without the )SI stack is essentially what
)COPY does and I would make that decision at )LOAD time and not at )SAVE
time.
Best Regards,
Jürgen
On 2/24/21 5:41 PM, Otto
Diesenbacher-Reinmüller wrote:
Hi Jürgen, Blake, APLers, wouldn't it be a low effort approach to switch to )DUMP-format as general workspace file format, having at the end an optional ⍝-area containing <StateIndicator levels="1"> from the current XML-fileformat.If this ⍝-area is present loading the file, it gets parsed and loaded, otherwise it is loaded as currently without state indicator. just my 2cents - :) Otto Blake McBride <blake1...@gmail.com> writes:On Wed, Feb 24, 2021 at 7:06 AM Dr. Jürgen Sauermann < mail@jürgen-sauermann.de> wrote:[...] First of all, )save produces an old file format.These days )dump is preferred over )save since it makes it much easier to recover most of a broken workspace files, and the )dump format is pretty much directly executable APL code rather than xml. That makes )dump more independent of the interpreter version than )save. The only disadvantage of )dump is that it does not save the )SI stack likw )save does. So when you )dump a workspace the you loose the )SI stach and with it all local variables. [...]Two points: 1. It is confusing to have two formats. 2. Preferring )DUMP, which isn't even part of standard APL, is, in a sense, changing the language. My suggestion is: A. Get rid of )SAVE B. Rename )DUMP to )SAVE C. Enhance the dump format to save the SI. Blake McBride
