Re: PATCH: file completion

["Bart Schaefer" <schaefer@candle.brasslantern.com>]

On Feb 9,  5:25pm, Sven Wischnowsky wrote:
} Subject: PATCH: file completion
}
} I finally got fed up with those longish while-getopts loops
} and added a small builtin (zparseopts) that can be used to replace
} such loops.

This is not a bad idea, but I repeat my frequent plea that we stop
placing so much emphasis on compact syntax.  nopts qopts 1opts 2opts ?
It's like reading Dr. Suess.

Besides, it can't support long options, which somebody at some point
is going to start yelling for.

How about

	zparseopts [ -a arraname | -A assocname | -D ] optspec ...

where optspec looks like

	optionname["+"|":"]["="arrayname]

where of course + : = in optionname can be backslashed or whatever.

The -a option would mean to use that arrayname for any optspec where
the =arrayname part was left off; the -A assocname would mean to set
assocname[optionname] with the same semantics that getopts sets OPTARG.

It could also use the GNU getopt double-colon syntax for whether an
option takes a required (one colon) or optional (two colons) argument.

It's also not clear what happens when there's an argument parsing error
of some sort; does zparseopts just quit then and ignore the rest of the 
arguments, or what?

-- 
Bart Schaefer                                 Brass Lantern Enterprises
http://www.well.com/user/barts              http://www.brasslantern.com