Re: Thoughts on a builtin read

[malte@TechFak.Uni-Bielefeld.DE]

[ Tom Culliton x2278 wrote: ]

    To keep things in the spirit of rc, simplicity should be our guiding
    principle.  This shapes most of the design decisions discussed below.

I always thought useability was the point ..

    1) One string rather than IFS seperation of fields
        - simplicity
        - preserves information, such as runs of blanks
        - field splitting can always be done later with backquote:
            read x;x=(`{echo -- $x})
...
    4) Should strip the newline
        - This makes "read x;echo -- $x" work right.

    5) Doesn't honor \ at EOL for continuation
        - simplicity

This is an inconsistency. I'd very much prefer the usual
        "x = `read"
    or  "x = `` ( $some_ifs_list ) { read }"

Malte