Matins: why isn't the full Gospel reading taken from Commune?

[Augustinus-Altovadensis]

Laudétur Jesus Christus!

I have finally started to work on Cistercian Matins and got to a curious issue: if the full Gospel reading isn't cited in full in the datafiles, it simply fails to display altogether, and this also messes up the layout and text colors.

I have two examples from today's PR: May 2 and September 28 for the Cistercian Altovadensis version.

If I understand the lectioE function in monastic.pl correctly, it looks into the winner's datafile, if it finds [LectioE] hash in an appropriate language, it's happy and plots it, if not, it attempts to resolve the cross-reference (and fails) and finally tries the identically named datafile in the missa/Sancti/Tempora subfolder.

Now my question is: why doesn't it then try the Commune folder? Is this by design or omission?
I would find it to be a next logical step, which would save a lot of copying.

Or did I make a mistake in the LectioE/Evangelium hashes?
Or does the code need something else to even try?

@FAJ-Munich Sorry to bother you again, but I guess you will know.

Thank you, God bless!

[FAJ-Munich]

Let me figure it out. It should take the Gospel from the Commune. Maybe something broke when merging it into the horas folder.

[Augustinus-Altovadensis]

Thank you! Just to make sure, I'm talking about the full Gospel at the end of Matins, not about Missa. And unless I missed something, in the above mentioned subroutine lectioE in monastic.pl, there is no evidence of even looking for the text in the Commune. And I'm quite sure that's the one the Cistercian version is using.

[Augustinus-Altovadensis]

@FAJ-Munich After looking at the above mentioned function once again, I am quite sure that the function absolutely ignored hyperlinks to the horas folder. Therefore I suggest a following edit, which seems to work just fine.

sub lectioE {
  my $lang = shift;

  my @e;
  my %w = columnsel($lang) ? %winner : %winner2;
  my %com = columnsel($lang) ? %commune : %commune2;

  if (exists($w{LectioE})) {    #** get evangelium from Winner
    @e = split("\n", $w{LectioE});
  } elsif (exists($com{LectioE})) {    #** get evangelium from Common
    @e = split("\n", $com{LectioE});
  } elsif (exists($com{Evangelium})) {    #** same as before, other hash
    @e = split("\n", $com{Evangelium});
  }

  if ($e[0] =~ s/^@//) {

    # if the Evangelium is just a cross-reference
    my ($w, $s) = split(/:/, $e[0]);

    if ($w) {$w .= '.txt';} 

    my %ref = %{setupstring($lang, $w)};
    @e = split("\n", $ref{$s});
  }

  if (!$e[0]) {

    # if the Evangelium is missing in the Sanctoral 
    my ($w, $s) = split(/:/, $e[0]);

    if ($w) {
      $w .= '.txt';
    } else {
      $w = $winner;
    }
    $w =~ s/(?:M|OP)//g;    # there is no corresponding folder in missa for M or OP
    $s =~ s/(?:LectioE)?/Evangelium/;
    my %missa = %{setupstring("../missa/$lang", $w)};
    @e = split("\n", $missa{$s});
  }

I added a %com variable with commune, two conditions looking for [LectioE]/[Evangelium] hash in the Commune, and split the following condition to either resolve the cross-reference in the location where it's written, not only in the missa folder, or to keep the original condition (for now) exactly as it is, although splitting the hyperlink again is probably not necessary.

But anyway, please look at that, if something is missing or if there are some links in the horas datafiles that point with their [LectioE]/[Evangelium] hashes directly to the missa folder and this would break this functionality...

[FAJ-Munich]

Two quick thoughts without being able to test it right now:

The commune should only have a Evangelium hash as far as I remember. No LectioE. I wonder if we can rename all LectioE hashes in the horas folders?

Before checking the commune file, one needs to check the corresponding file in the missa folder. However, since their is no monastic folder in missa, the files which are for proper Monastic/Cistercian offices do not have the relevant counterpart in the missa anyways.

[Augustinus-Altovadensis]

The commune should only have a Evangelium hash as far as I remember. No LectioE. I wonder if we can rename all LectioE hashes in the horas folders?

Good point, I will do that. In the process of my testing, I tried everything and some LectioE hashes remained. I will rename it.

Before checking the commune file, one needs to check the corresponding file in the missa folder. However, since their is no monastic folder in missa, the files which are for proper Monastic/Cistercian offices do not have the relevant counterpart in the missa anyways.

OK. That's true. So either the Commune part will have to be moved, or there will be one more check to find the corresponding hash in my %missa = %{setupstring("../missa/$lang", $w)};

[Augustinus-Altovadensis]

@FAJ-Munich I have suggested a solution in commit 4a99a0d.
If you agree with it, we can close this thread.

BTW, there are some [LectioE] hashes in the Commune, that I didn't put there, so I didn't touch them. There is also quite a lot hashes like [LectioE in 2 loco], which I didn't touch either, but this doesn't really concern them.

[Augustinus-Altovadensis]

OK, that's a problem. Anyway, thanks for testing that!

I regressed part of my changes, so that all of those work now, but the issue remains that if I use a cross-link to another datafile in horas folder, it doesn't get resolved.

Now the question is: is is worth to resolve it, or given that it should always be the Gospel from the Mass, I will simply add a missa datafile anytime I need a special Gospel?

One solution comes to mind - to test first a hyperlink in the horas folder, if it doesn't exist, test it in the missa folder. But then, I suspect, we would get the same error as in 07-18-2025... Do you have any suggestion?

[FAJ-Munich]

Which type of cross-links are causing trouble: to Commune or to other Sancti files?

[Augustinus-Altovadensis]

Which type of cross-links are causing trouble: to Commune or to other Sancti files?

Actually both. I tested a link that looked like this:

[LectioE]
@Commune/C2:Evangelium

It worked before, but now it doesn't. Of course, maybe the format is wrong and it would work without the Evangelium word or something like this. Also I don't see, how a link to a horas/$lang/Sancti file could work, unless the setupstring function does some kind of magic and tests the horas folder first, but as far as I understand, it does that only for Comment.txt...

[FAJ-Munich]

PR #4522 should solve most issues (except for pseudo-commune, e.g. 12-15.txt) and incomplete database (e.g. 10-05.txt)

[Augustinus-Altovadensis]

Very nice! Getting rid of LectioE absolutely makes sense. I will test it as soon as it comes online, but I don't expect any surprises.