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To:	rc%hawkwind.utcs.toronto.edu%m_internet%m_mailnow%hermes.DECnet@cesar.
	sedalia.sinet.slb.com
Subject: Re:  builtin read
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 17 Sep 1993 15:36:01 +0200."
Reply-To: vons@cesar.crbca1.sinet.slb.com
Date:	Fri, 17 Sep 1993 09:54:29 -0400


 |I have not decided yet wether a builtin read is a good idea or not.
 |Meanwhile let me help you with this
 |
 |    for( line in `` ($nl) { cat /some/file }){
 |        words = `{ echo $line }
 |    }

Agreed, it looks better than what I came up with, but my objections
remain the same. You still need to fork&exec a cat, and it remains
a bit cludgy IMHO.

 |But I don't understand how your second solution works because there
 |must be something wrong with input redirection. My rc behaves like this:
 |
 |	; while( echo outside ){ echo inside } > /dev/null
 |	outside
 |	outside
 |	..

Oops, typo in my mail I guess, forgot the accolades around the whole
while+body. Applying it to your example, it becomes

	; { while (echo outside) {echo inside}  } > /dev/null

which works as I intended.

I'm not yet convinced though, a builtin read makes the shell more complete
IMHO, not to mention that it would make it easier to pass scripts around.
If someone else wants to use a script of mine, who guarantees that he/she
has an identical read function in his environment, and in case I add a
read function to my script, should I use awk, "sh -c 'read a;echo $a'",
/usr/bin/line, ... ????  And I think that performance is a reasonable
argument here as well.

	Gert-Jan

---------------------------------------------------
J.G. Vons   E-Mail: vons@cesar.crbca1.sinet.slb.com