[Oberon] ETH-Oberon/bluebottle lacks simple 'Replace'.

[easlab at absamail.co.za]

IMO even after many attempted patches by several contributors,
RX* is the most disasterous application in the N-O suite.

One reason is that it handles only ASCII.
So for any ORD(Char) > 127, it traps.

We need an application which can take a table [data set] of 
replacements/translations eg.
Translate: from -> to
<new-line> "   " -> ""   // remove 3 leading spaces
"a^8099" -> "'"
"a^8093" -> "-"
"$BCT(B" -> "'s"
"…" -> "..." 
"&lsquo" -> "`"
"&rdquo" -> """
...etc.

I'm not sure that these 'translations' are correct.
But that doesn't matter since the data-table can be edited and 
extended.   As more garbage becomes fashionable the 'cleaning
table' is just extended to clean/translate the stuff obtained, 
mostly from the internet.  I suspect this is related to MIME ?

I also can't find any good reason why these garbage translations
are used instead of the 'original' ASCII eg. why use "&rsquo"
when "'" is what is available and is to be rendered ?!

What would be nice is something like:
  Translate <TranslationFileName>  * | ^ | <TextFileID> ~

As linux-ETH-oberon fixes the inet facility weakness on ETH-oberon,
so the problem of these garbage-chars needing translation becomes 
more necessary.

Any ideas/info related to this problem are much appreciated.

Thanks,

== Chris Glur.

PS. I've extended Find.* to do:
Find.FileList  <"set" "of" "Strngs" > ~ 
Which lists the FileSet which contains all of the 'set of strings',
and used/test-confirmed it many times over 18 months.
It is usefull when you want to locate a file where you
remember you eg. wrote "otatoe" [ie. P/potatoe]
"expensive" "isease" ...etc.   Also if you remember the 
time period when you wrote/saved the file [eg. during
a specific period of your life] you can use SmartDir* to
reduce the file-space.  SmartDir* is another usefull utility 
which never got into the N-O package AFAIK; or use the 
simple script which reverse-date-orders the DirListing,
and just 'cutOut' the applicable date-range set of files.

Since the Find.extention required a terrible convoluted hack,
and in principle I disagree with ETH's [understandable 
because each student must do his own work] non-collaborative
work style, the utility will unlikely be cleaned and made
available for wider use.

In principle it's WRONG for users to make 'private' utilities.
IMO the socio/political structure of ETH-oberon accounts
for the lack of user growth.  The structure needs to allow 
small incremental improvements and not only PhD sized
contributions.