Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!husc6!mailrus!cwjcc!hal!nic.MR.NET!tank!mimsy!chris
From: chris@mimsy.UUCP (Chris Torek)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: $<
Message-ID: <14464@mimsy.UUCP>
Date: 10 Nov 88 11:53:46 GMT
References: <1698@imagine.PAWL.RPI.EDU> <1702@imagine.PAWL.RPI.EDU>
Organization: U of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Science, Coll. Pk., MD 20742
Lines: 40

[apologies for all the quoting; I could not trim much out]
>In article <1698@imagine.PAWL.RPI.EDU> tale@pawl.rpi.edu writes:
>>set page = $<
>>echo $page $#page		/* just for debugging
>>if ( $page == 'q' ) exit
>>man $page | less
>>
>>If I give it '5 plot', it does:
>>5 plot 1
>>if: expression syntax
>>child of tty exited with return code 1

In article <1702@imagine.PAWL.RPI.EDU> hiebeler@rpics (Dave Hiebeler) writes:
>  I think you want your third line to read:
>if ( ${page[1]} == "q" ) exit

This still fails.

>  (Note that just out of habit I use {} around variable-names, and double
>quotes around strings... you probably don't need them, but I'm not sure.)

You need the quotes, but not where you put them:

>  I think your problem was the if was getting expanded to:
>    if ( 5 plot == 'q' ) exit

This is exactly the problem; to circumvent it, use

	if ("$page" == q) exit

or

	if ($page:q == q) exit

It is not necessary to quote the `q' that comes after the `==' in
this case, since it contains no special characters.  (It does not
hurt to quote it, of course.)
-- 
In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci Dept (+1 301 454 7163)
Domain:	chris@mimsy.umd.edu	Path:	uunet!mimsy!chris