Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!uupsi!ficc!peter From: peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) Newsgroups: comp.os.misc Subject: Re: shell with da Silva lining Message-ID: <+YRA=A5@xds13.ferranti.com> Date: 16 Apr 91 20:42:20 GMT References: <1563@sheol.UUCP> <60GAP=D@xds13.ferranti.com> <1639@sheol.UUCP> <1685@sheol.UUCP> Reply-To: peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) Organization: Xenix Support, FICC Lines: 49 In article <1685@sheol.UUCP> throopw@sheol.UUCP (Wayne Throop) writes: > > peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) > >> But now you run into the question of just how you would utter the > >> string "[glob *.c]". > > \[glob *.c\] Yes, that's the general idea. > Note that the escape is "merely" an odd-looking quotation convention. It's moe than a bit messy... > So this usage complicates (one could say "pollutes") the simple quotation > convention started out with. I would say "pollutes", myself. > Hmmmmm. I'd have thought the inner [] would be recursively expanded, > so that cases like [wc -l [glob *.c]] could be used easily and naturally > to get linecounts as arguments to something. Thus, the inner [a-z] > above would conflict. Yes, of course you're right. Never mind. > > `[...], but how about {...}? > Seems OK. Does {foo;bar;bletch} do the "obvious" thing? Run foo, bar, and bletch and incorporate the result in the command? Yes. More and more for this I like using newline seperators only for splitting these up. I still like having quotes only effect argument parsing, and using escapes to escape quotes. > > Perhaps you could donate a parser for this > I'm interested, but my time may be more limited than you'd like. Hey, *my* time is more limited than I like. > I'm also still trying to get straight what you intend the exact > semantics of things to be... you might not like the semantics of > any contribution I could give :-). Sure, but it'd give us something to work on. Maybe when I see it in action I'll like it more than my own ideas. -- Peter da Silva. `-_-' peter@ferranti.com +1 713 274 5180. 'U` "Have you hugged your wolf today?"