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Date: Wed, 11 Sep 1991 17:10:34 -0000
From: malte@techfak.uni-bielefeld.de
Message-Id: <9109111710.AA06478@dahlie.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de>
To: rc@archone.tamu.edu
Subject: a word about shift

I'd like to raise a discussion about shift's behaviour.
There are two things I am not too content with:

    1) shift doesn't work on any other variables than *
    What about an extended shift, say shift var number,
    or shift number, where the latter assumes * is to be shifted.
    This preserves compatibility.

    2) When $#var is lower than the number of shifts, shift prints an
    error message and does nothing. I'd prefer shift would optionally
    a) just print an error message, 
    b) print an error and set var to (),
    c) be silent and set var to (),
    d) do nothing

What about this? Anyone experienced out there?


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