5. Overview of initialization files content and loading

The initialization files are perl files, read as explained in Use initialization files for fine tuning. You don't need to know much of perl to do some simple changes in variable values, however, to be able to really take advantage of all the features of the initialization file, a good knowledge of perl is required.

In initialization file two kind of variables appear. These are normal variables (including arrays and hashes) and references on functions. The later permits the dynamic redefinition of functions used to produce the HTML manual. You should be able to change the value of some normal variables without a deep knowledge of perl, by looking at the existing examples. The possible mistakes in that case could be omitted ‘;’, and bad quoting.

Initialization file are loaded from the main program by the mean of a require, while in the Texi2HTML::Config namespace. This means that the namespace of the main program and the namespace of inititalization files are distinct, which ensures that no name clash should happen. The variables are declared with the our specifier, such that it should be possible to use the use strict pragma in the initialization file code.

To avoid messing with the variables in the main namespace all the global variables which could be of use in the init files are in the Texi2HTML namespace. Notice that the functions of the main program are still in the main namespace.

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