Peter Gerwinski wrote:

However I have planned to make it possible to put all compiler options (including `--automake' :) into the source, so you will be able to compile any Pascal program just with "gpc progname.pas".

That would be great! Putting "--automake" into the source seemed strange to me at first sight, but when I think about it, it can be useful for distributing programs. Does this also include the "-o ..." option? In this case, this "problem" would also be solved by putting "{$o destname}" into the main program. BTW: Are compiler options case sensitive? Otherwise there would be a possible confusion with BP's "{$O filename}" for overlays. I also suggest a compiler switch that will always choose the base filename as the destination filename, unless an explicit "-o ..." option is given. Then I could put this switch into a global configuration file/specs/whatever and wouldn't usually have to worry about "-o ..." options.

* I will try to make it possible to pass these command-line options as compiler directives, e.g. (*$field-widths=12,24,6*).

In such a way that they can be changed at any point in the source, like in this (extreme and not very sensible) example: write({$field-widths=0,0,0}a,{$field-widths}b) Perhaps also "--no-field-widths", equivalent to "--field-widths=0,0,0"? The "-O" (optimization) switches could also be useful in the source, like: [some non-time-critical code] {$O2} [very time-critical code] {$O0} [some non-time-critical code] This example also shows that it can be desirable to "push" and "pop" options. It would be better to write e.g. (tentative syntax): [some non-time-critical code] {$BEGIN}{$O2} [very time-critical code] {$END} [some non-time-critical code] Then, after the "{$END}", the options would be like they were before the "{$BEGIN}", and if "-O2" was given from the command line, it would still be on in the last part of the code. In fact, this is a missing feature of BP, and is often solved by workarounds like: {$IFOPT R+}{$DEFINE R}{$ENDIF}{$R-} [...] {$IFDEF R}{$R+}{$ENDIF} This works for a switch with only 2 possible values ({$R+} and {$R-}), but for siwtches like {$field-width=x,y,z}, it's not possible to do it like that, and it's not very nice anyway... So, pushing and popping options would really be a plus.

In fact DJGPP supports symbolic links on DOS.

Really? I didn't find an "ln" command on my system. I installed just the necessary DJGPP stuff, do I need some more packages for symlinks? And do symlinks also work for executables, or only for files accessed from within DJGPP programs? Anyway, I don't think this would be a good solution for DOS systems, but as many of you have shown, there are enough ways to supply default switches on any system, with or without an IDE... -- Frank Heckenbach, Erlangen, Germany heckenb@mi.uni-erlangen.de Turbo Pascal: http://www.mi.uni-erlangen.de/~heckenb/programs.htm Internet links: http://www.mi.uni-erlangen.de/~heckenb/links.htm