Chapter 7
Programming Tools

The following commands allow the advanced programming of primitives’ filtering, and recursively exploring the structure of a project. An example of their use could be the definition of a standard company style report, that inputs the project definition and with one command produces the project documentation.

7.1 Tag Operations

\apply{tag, milestone command, project command, task command}

• milestone command, project command, and task command are user defined commands with parameters similar to those offered for \defmilestone, \defproject, and \deftask, respectively. The only exception is for the trailing description parameters, which are provided indirectly through names of macros that hold the parameters.
• \apply executes on tag the command that applies to the item type.

\rapply{tag, milestone command, project command, task command}

• A variant of \apply that recursively applies to the given item and its direct and indirect dependents;
• \depth records the depth of recursion.

7.2 Set Operations

\sapply{tag set, general command}

• A variant of the \apply command in which the first parameter should be given a set of tags.
• A tag set is specified by a comma-separated list of tags delimited within braces, or by an identifier defined through the following commands.

  \sapply{identifier, merge, set, set}  \sapply{identifier, intersect, set, set}  \sapply{identifier, subtract, set, set}  \sapply{identifier, milestones, tag set}  \sapply{identifier, projects, tag set}  \sapply{identifier, tasks, tag set}  \sapply{identifier, before, tag set}  \sapply{identifier, after, tag set}  \sapply{identifier, up, tag set}  \sapply{identifier, down, tag set}  \sapply{identifier, sort, tag set}  \sapply{tag, defproject, tag set, name, description}

  The first argument is assigned the result of applying the specified operation. The operation is given by the second argument, and the operands by the remaining arguments.

• The operands of the merge, intersect, and subtract operations may be consisted of general sets of keywords, not just of tags.
• The following commands might become useful during debugging.

  \sapply{traceon}       \sapply{traceoff}

• \breadth records the breadth of the set.