Re: Counting characters in command output?

[Ray Andrews <rayandrews@eastlink.ca>]

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On 2024-02-13 22:49, Roman Perepelitsa wrote:
> Right, command substitution. In my opinion, it's unfortunate that
> command substitution in zsh splits on IFS by default. I wish this
> wasn't the case. It's not even common that one wants to split command
> output into words. Lines -- perhaps, but not words. So the default
> behavior in this case is rarely what is desired and has to be actively
> turned off.
What are the vectors?  First must be logical necessity, second 
consistency -- avoid strange exceptions -- third and fourth would be 
helpfulness and tradition, with old-school guys favoring tradition and 
guys like me favoring helpfulness.  I've spent more hours trying to get 
splitting issues correct than anything else.  Characters, words, IFS, 
lines, elements ... it's the  most obscure and confusing part of the 
shell.  Lacking any focused explanation of the entire subject what I do 
is just throw saved snippets of code at problems until something sticks 
-- it looks about right, but even there I might think I have line 
splitting when it's really elements.  I wish there were enough of us on 
this list to put things to a vote sometimes and in this case I'd bet 
that Roman's view would win overwhelmingly.   I myself almost always 
want lines.  Or elements. Sometimes words, almost  never characters.



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