From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from techfac.TechFak.Uni-Bielefeld.DE ([129.70.132.100]) by hawkwind.utcs.toronto.edu with SMTP id <2223>; Tue, 21 Sep 1993 02:51:31 -0400 Received: from dahlie.TechFak.Uni-Bielefeld.DE by techfac.TechFak.Uni-Bielefeld.DE id AA13638; Tue, 21 Sep 1993 08:51:21 +0200 Received: by dahlie.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de (5.0/tp.29.0890) id AA18498; Tue, 21 Sep 93 08:51:19 +0200 Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1993 02:51:19 -0400 From: malte@TechFak.Uni-Bielefeld.DE Message-Id: <9309210651.AA18498@dahlie.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de> To: rc@hawkwind.utcs.toronto.edu Subject: Re: Thoughts on a builtin read [ 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