SLY

sly − manual page for sly lilypond input format converter

sly inputprefix outputprefix

sly is a shell script which takes a file with extension .sly and splits it into parts to be read by lilypond in an .ly file by means of includes.

The splitted parts are piped through sed using the ptfilter.sed rules. If ptfilter.sed is not present, it is touched.

sly is not a preprocessor, it is an editing tool, but by using ptfilter.sed or the conversion program of your choice you can do all the preprocessing you can stand. It’s usefulness comes from getting the notes out of the .ly file, not from anything that is done to customize syntax. Putting the parts into readable columns is by far the most important use for this program. Actually, it is the only use for sly itself, but by taking the parts out of the .ly file much else becomes possible.

While sly is designed entirely for lilypond, it could probably be adapted for any text based music entry where the music can be entered by voices rather than comb fashion.

To use this, you need bourne sh, awk and sed.

Assume the file test.sly contains

pt1 | pt2 | pt3

pt1 | pt2 | pt3

pt1 | pt2 | pt3

pt1 | pt2 | pt3

So a .sly file is simply a spreadsheet with the fields delineated by " |", a space and a bar, for convenient editing in any editor. You probably want each record (line) to be a measure, but it is not necessary to do it that way.

Calling

sly test out-

will produce 3 files: out-pt1.ly, out-pt2.ly and out-pt3.ly. These files contain the corresponding columns of the test.sly file.

Please note that the input file parameter does not have the .sly extension.

Copyright (C) David Raleigh Arnold, Licensing under GPL

ptfilter.sed(1) sly-mate(1) sly-tidy(1) lilypond(1) info lilypond

http://www.openguitar.com/readaboutsly.html

sly does not obey standards, but also no standards are violated by sly.

The sly command appeared about 2002 at http://www.openguitar.com/