Chapter 1: Introduction |
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This document is the reference guide for CML, the Caucus
Markup Language. CML is a scripting language
that combines HTML tags with simple programming constructs and
database functions. The CML language interpreter is the core
of the World Wide Web interface to the Caucus conferencing system
(hence the name).
This guide assumes considerable familiarity with HTML, the World Wide Web, Web browsers, and the Caucus conferencing system. For more information about Caucus, see the Caucus Systems Inc home page at http://caucussystems.com, and the Caucus FAQ at http://screenporch.com/sp/faq2.
This document is copyright © 1996-99 by Caucus Systems Inc. It may not be distributed or reprinted without permission from Screen Porch. This is a work-in-progress, and will be frequently revised. This edition corresponds to the CML interpreter provided with the "Caucus 4.08" package. Corrections and comments (but not questions) should be sent to the author at roth@caucussystems.com.
1.1 What's new in Caucus 4.1
First of all, if you are upgrading from version 3.x of Caucus, first see What's new in Caucus 4.0. The rest of this page describes changes since version 4.0.
1.2 Incompatible Changes in 4.1
In some special cirumstances, CML variable names containing a dot (".") may not be interpreted correctly. (This is in preparation for the CML Object Model, a new data type that will appear in Caucus 4.2.) If at all possible, please avoid the use of CML variables containing a dot.
1.3 New features and functions in 4.1
$set_per_name | Change a person's name | |
$set_per_phone | Change a person's telephone number | |
$set_per_intro | Change a person's brief introduction | |
$set_per_join | Make a person a member of a conference | |
$charval | Value of a character in a string (previously undocumented) | |
$char | Convert decimal value to character | |
$reloaded | Was this page just reloaded? | |
$cache_timeout | Set maximum age of (conference) cache | |
$cache_clear | Clears (conference) cache | |
$pagetime | Value of PageTime parameter in swebd.conf | |
$it_lastresp | Last (undeleted) response in item | |
$words | Subset of words in a string | |
$wordpos | Character position of a word in a string | |
$numeric | Is a word a number? | |
Copy directive | Equivalent to Set, but preserves leading blanks | |
$create_conf | extended to add userlist argument | |
$is_num | position of 1st non-numeric char (previously undocumented) | |
$errors | display accumulated error messages | |
$variables | display names and values of all variables | |
$http_remote_user | access authorization userid | |
$co_name | name of conference | |
$readterm | read a line from user's terminal (sweba only) | |
$copyfile | copy a file from one place to another | |
$strlen | length of a string | |
$it_pack | pack an item triplet list as "english" | |
$list_conf_var | list conference variables | |
$list_item_var | list item variables | |
$list_site_var | list site variables | |
$list_user_var | list user variables | |
$weekday | day # of week | |
Continue directive | Start next iteration in for/while/count loop | |
$cl_access | (Added new optional argument) | |
$lice_customer | License customer number | |
$lice_confs | Maximum number of conferences allowed by license |
The last official release of Caucus was version 4.05. Version 4.09 is the beta-test version. When testing is complete, it will officially released as an upgrade as Caucus 4.1.