POSIX Update: Shell and Utilities.

[Peter da Silva]

[Time for a mvgroup to comp.org.uniforum? :->]

> I am not sure what all those !'s mean.

Oh, it's a convention I picked up somewhere to represent "quoted program
text".

> But in re-reading the
> first (included) paragraph, my guess is that I should refer you back
> to Draft 8. Page 128, beginning with line 1063, ...

Where can I get these drafts?

> Korn's data showed that a new, quoting syntax, ala
> [[ ]], would be less prone to programming error, and it could be made to
> have a richer set of tests. Unfortunately, the quoting itself is a
> problem for standardization. (see my postscript.)

Good idea, and I can see why they would want to use [[ ]] instead of [ ]
for that... nothing worse than a silent change. If that's the case then
I guess that answers my question. [ ] isn't necessarily going away, it's
just not relevent to this point.

> I just hope that I was able to shed some light on the subject.

Yes Thanks.

> By the way, tell me what is this "white paper!"

POSIX Update: Shell and Utilities/An Update on the IEEE P1003.2/Shell
and Utilities/Working Group//December 1989//by/Hal Jespersen.

I like the $[expr] syntax, by the way. Is there any interest in adding
the korn shell $(command) syntax as a (nestable) synonym for grave
accents?
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 _--_|\  Peter da Silva. +1 713 274 5180. <peter at ficc.uu.net>.
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