Re: [9fans] mishandling empty lists - let's fix it

[Uriel <uriel99@gmail.com>]

On Sun, Oct 4, 2009 at 12:46 PM, Richard Miller <9fans@hamnavoe.com> wrote:
>>   `--' ends options, forces consistent multi-file mode, allows empty lists
>
> Hey, yeah, great idea.  And why not use '---' to force switching to
> Linux compatible mode, and '----' to switch to BSD syntax, and '-----'
> for System V syntax (5 hyphens, System 5, easy to remember).  Oh, and we
> might need a way to switch back to Plan 9 syntax.  That better be ''
> (0 hyphens).
>
> Example:
>
>  cat ---- -s ----- -s '' -v
>
> prints the contents of file named '-v', squeezing multiple empty lines
> (BSD -s) and silencing error message (System V -s).

I'm sure the people in charge of writing the next version of the PoSix
standard will be very happy to adopt your proposal!

That is, if they have not independently 'discovered' this fantastic
solution to this horrible 'problem' already on their own.

Of course, they could also move with the times, and adopt an XML
format for command arguments which would be much more extensible and
Web 2.0 compliant.

That way all commands could share the same dynamically linked parser,
and one could write scripts with their favorite XML-editor!

uriel