4 File syntax

4.1 General conventions

In general, words can be separated by any combination of whitespace characters (SPACE, TAB, EOL). In certain files, TABs or EOL are meaningful (e.g. MTG coding files), and therefore are not considered as a whitespace character in these files.

Comments may be introduced anywhere in a file using the sharp sign #, meaning that the rest of the line is a comment. In some files, block comments can be introduced by bracketing the comment text with (# and #).

Files used by AML can be located anywhere in the UNIX hierachical file system, provided the user can access them. All references to files from within a file or from AML must be given explicitly. References to files must always be made relatively to the location where the reference is made.

In various files, user-defined names must be given to objects, attributes, etc. Unless specified otherwise, names always consist of strings of alphanumeric characters (including underscore '_') starting by a non-numeric character. A name may start by an underscore. Some names correspond to reserved keywords. Since reserved keywords always start in AMAPmod with uppercase letter, it is advised, though not mandatory, to define user-defined names starting with lowercase letter to avoid name collision.