NAME

meta - A simple front-end to Acme::MetaSyntactic

SYNOPSIS

meta [ --whitespace|ws ] [ --help ] [ --version ] [ --remote ] [ --check ] [ --sources ] [ --category category ] theme[/category] [ count ]

DESCRIPTION

meta is a simple front-end to Acme::MetaSyntactic.

A few examples should make it easy to understand what it does and how it works:

    $ meta
    baz
    $ meta batman
    powie
    $ meta donmartin 3
    kloong
    thoof_foing
    weeooweeeoooo
    $ meta -ws browser 4
    arachne netscape voyager w3m

In short, the default theme is "foo", the default count is 1, the default separator is $/, but you can replace it by whitespace with --ws.

COMMAND-LINE OPTIONS

The following command-line options are available:

Metasyntactic options

--whitespace, --ws

Print all items on a single line, separated by space.

--remote

Fetch the remote list (if available) and print it.

--check

Fetch the remote list (if available) and print only the differences betwen the current list and the remote list (items are prefixed by "+" and "-").

Option added by Abigail.

The output of this option is affected by the --whitespace option.

--category category

Only select items in the given category (for "Acme::MetaSyntactic::MultiList" subclasses). If not given, use the default category.

Silently fallbacks to the default if the category doesn't exist.

Another way to ask for a specific category is to skip the --category option and directly ask for "theme/category". Note that you cannot use both calling conventions simultaneously.

Informative options

The program will exit if any of these options is selected. However, these options can be combined.

--themes: Print the list of available themes.
--sources: Print the URLs used by a remote list.
--version: Print version information.
--help: Print a short help message.

SUCCESS STORIES

meta is the script of choice for a new generation of hackers. Here are a few comments from satisfied users:

"Acme::MetaSyntactic" makes me more productive when I have to write regression tests for my Perl modules. No more do I spend time looking for variable names! It simply changed my life.
-- Rafael Garcia-Suarez, pumpking, used AMS when writing tests for "Sub::Identify".
"Acme::MetaSyntactic" gave names for regression tests in the Perl core
See <https://github.com/Perl/perl5/commit/adc51b978ed1b2e9d4512c9bfa80386ac917d05a>.
Your module has been a wonderful timesaver for me. How much time I used to spend on thinking about good and meaningful variable names, and now I have them at the snap of a finger!
-- Gisbert W. Selke
[...] with the help of Acme::MetaSyntatic I've been able to do some rudimentary code generation techniques that save me a lot of time without much outlay.
-- Mark Fowler

<http://blog.twoshortplanks.com/2010/07/03/holy_acceleration/>
When writing example applications, I almost always use variable names such as foo and bar. This gets boring, and it easily confuse the reader. Especially when I need to use more variables.
-- Gabor Szabo

<http://perlmaven.com/acme-metasyntactic>

EXAMPLES OF USE

Ever needed to debug with the help of a few "print()" statements? Simply map some keystrokes to insert a warning where you want it. With meta, you will never need to think about what write in the string argument:

    nmap _wa :r!meta donmartin<CR>iwarn"<Esc>A";<Esc>==

(This mapping kindly given by Rafael Garcia-Suarez.)

AUTHOR

Philippe "BooK" Bruhat, "<book@cpan.org>".

COPYRIGHT

LICENSE

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.