Prerex (5) Linux Manual Page

prerex_format — a format for prerequisite-chart descriptions

Description

This manual describes the format of prerequisite-chart descriptions that can be processed by [pdf]latex (normally using a suitable prerex.sty(7) style file) and edited using the prerex(1) interactive editor (or by any conventional text editor).

Terminology

A prerequisite chart consists of a number of course boxes, linked by arrows. Courses are either half or full, and may be required or optional (or neither). Each course box can contain a course code (upper left corner), a course title (lower half), and timetable information (upper right corner). An arrow can be either a prerequisite (solid), a corequisite (dotted), or recommended (dashed). When a conventional arrow would be inappropriate, a mini course just above a target box can be used.

Structure

The file should contain exactly one instance of a LaTeX environment

egin{chart} instruction … nd{chart}

with at most one instruction per line. Note that a program such as prerex(1) analyzes prerex-format files without using TeX; for example, macro definitions will be ignored and macro calls will not be expanded.

Instructions may be preceded by white space. Lines that start with % are treated as comments and ignored. The order of instructions is not significant except that the instruction for the source and target box o an arrow should precede the instruction for the arrow. The instruction formats are described in the following sections.

Course Boxes

The instructions producing course boxes have the following forms:

\halfcourse x,y:{code}{title}{timetable}
ullcourse x,y:{code}{title}{timetable}
eqhalfcourse x,y:{code}{title}{timetable}
eqfullcourse x,y:{code}{title}{timetable}
\opthalfcourse x,y:{code}{title}{timetable}
\optfullcourse x,y:{code}{title}{timetable}

where x,y are the coordinates of the centerpoint of the box, relative to the origin of the coordinate system at the lower-left corner of the diagram. The code, title, and timetable arguments are arbitrary (well-bracketed) text, possibly with LaTeX markup.

The following are similar but take an additional argument to specify the (non-default) background color of the course box:

\halfcoursec x,y:{code}{title}{timetable}{color}

ullcoursec x,y:{code}{title}{timetable}{color}



eqhalfcoursec

x,y:{code}{title}{timetable}{color}



eqfullcoursec

x,y:{code}{title}{timetable}{color}

\opthalfcoursec x,y:{code}{title}{timetable}{color}

\optfullcoursec x,y:{code}{title}{timetable}{color}

Mini Course Boxes And Text

A mini course is produced by an instruction of the form

\mini x,y:{code}: A text line is inserted into the chart by an instruction of the form
ext x,y:{line-of-text}: The maximum allowed length of a course-code may be smaller that the maximum allowed for a line of text.

Arrows

Arrows between course boxes (or from a mini to a course box) are produced by instructions of the form

\prereq x0,y0,x1,y1:

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