Re: [9fans] How can I shift a variable other than ?

[erik quanstrom <quanstro@coraid.com>]

On Sun Mar 11 15:28:11 EST 2007, bsdaemon@comcast.net wrote:
> I never said that rc(1) was perfect. I'm all for rewriting it, and 
> fixing bugs. I'm not for breaking its syntax, though. It makes far more 
> sense to leave rc as rc(1) and to write a new shell which deals with the 
> shortcomings of rc. 

rc is not the unchanging point at the center of a circle you think it is.  
<> redirection and $" are not in the original rc paper.

and more to the point, there have been no ideas yet that would
break older rc scripts nor change the grammer or lexemes.  even list
assignment would be a matter of handling a case that currently gives
an error.  the grammer supports it.

the things i've added experimentally are

1.  support for history.
2.  a break statement.
3.  a fix to make wait reliable as per the december discussion.
4.  subscript ranges -- $fu(n-m)

of these, only break even goes so far as to add a keyword.

- erik