2013-11-05 Improved the seating plan script further. The improvement was small, necessary, and rather obvious. Still, it took me some days to realize the need for it. I've separated the program logic from the output formating code. Both are still awk scripts, but now I can use the logic separately. [0] I've done this right away to generate thousands of seating plans in order to check the randomness of the random number generator. [1] To avoid `cat -n', one might use `pr -tn'. pr(1) is an almost forgotten, but worthwhile tool. Have a look at it! Makefiles are an approach to avoid unnecessary rebuilding of al- ready up to date results. They are, however, not so perfect to just run some commands in a sequence. How to do this alternative- ly? Just create a shell script and put the commands there. But how to name it? Often heard is the name `doit.csh'. (The `csh' indicates the times of its origin.) Running the script requires to prefix it with `./' as the current directory is seldom in PATH today. I wanted to have something quicker to type, just like `make'. Hence, I've created a small shell script `doit' in PATH, which runs an executable file `doit' in the local directory. #!/bin/sh # # run the file `doit' in the local directory exec ./doit "$@" Now, I have a recognizable naming convention and a very quick way to run it. Let's see if it proves good. [0] http://marmaro.de/prog/various/seating-plan/version3/ [1] http://marmaro.de/prog/various/seating-plan/version3/stats http://marmaro.de/lue/ markus schnalke