From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 20964 invoked by alias); 26 Dec 2013 14:55:21 -0000 Mailing-List: contact zsh-users-help@zsh.org; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk X-No-Archive: yes List-Id: Zsh Users List List-Post: List-Help: X-Seq: 18257 Received: (qmail 16150 invoked from network); 26 Dec 2013 14:55:06 -0000 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.3.2 (2011-06-06) on f.primenet.com.au X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.7 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,RCVD_IN_DNSWL_NONE, RCVD_NUMERIC_HELO,SPF_HELO_PASS autolearn=no version=3.3.2 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ To: zsh-users@zsh.org From: Yuri D'Elia Subject: Re: Expanding quotes Date: Thu, 26 Dec 2013 15:50:17 +0100 Message-ID: References: <131217102648.ZM8656@torch.brasslantern.com> <131223111515.ZM31989@torch.brasslantern.com> <52B9A47B.7050009@eastlink.ca> <52B9C1E9.2050000@eastlink.ca> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: 159.20.235.175 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:17.0) Gecko/20131103 Icedove/17.0.10 In-Reply-To: <52B9C1E9.2050000@eastlink.ca> On 12/24/2013 06:18 PM, Ray Andrews wrote: > I prefer simplicity with some resulting limitations on what can be done, > over complicated efforts to do 'anything'. It's just as Bart said, some > issues are better left 'unsolved'. The solution could be worse than the > problem. I think back to my DOS days, where almost all of the 'special' > characters were reserved--it sure made things simpler. I think you're conflating the text UI of a shell, the filesystem and the shell language itself as part of the same issue. Yes, taken together, I do agree that from my user point of view it's definitely inconvenient and the interaction is not ideal. However, I would gladly prefer a shell solution than "fixing" what's clearly not broken: the filesystem. If you use a visual file manager, users will curse your from not being allowed to use quotes and spaces as part of the file name. I know windows users complain all the time about the disallowed characters, because they don't see the reasons of the restricted character set anymore (this is true also for users of nautilus/gnome/kde of course). I also agree with these users. > And mine ;-) I come at this, not as a zsh expert, but as a guy who knows > something about information theory. Noam Chomsky would have something to > say about this sort of issue. The line-editing interface has definitely limitations, but I would always like to think about it just as one of the possible interfaces to the file system. Imagine a different shell, where you had to different insertion modes, like "vi". To enter a path, you would enter "pathname" mode with ESCp, and the shell would keep track internally of the beginning and end of the file name, while just showing the path maybe in a different color: % some-command ESCppath name with spacesESCc continue command Problem solved without escaping entirely? (damn, I would love such a shell).