Re: Incompatibility in zsh-3.0-pre3 ?

Re: Incompatibility in zsh-3.0-pre3 ?

[Vinnie Shelton]

pws@ifh.de said:
> This is due to the change that {, }, and [[ are treated as `reserved 
> words' --- which basically means they have to appear separately on 
> the command line.  This is for compatibility (repeat mantra 57 times 
> :-/).

I just want to go on record as stating that I think this is really NOT a good 
thing.  IMO, *way* too many scripts and functions are going to break.  Bart's 
example is a good one:

: grind Mon 15 11:04; echo $ZSH_VERSION
3.0-pre2
: grind Mon 15 11:04; [[-z $foo]] && echo foo is not set
foo is not set
  
: grind Mon 15 11:05; echo $ZSH_VERSION
3.0-pre3
: grind Mon 15 11:05; [[-z $foo]] && echo foo is not set
zsh: bad pattern: [[-z

Big picture questions: How can we have major changes like this shortly before 
a release?  What's the timeframe for the 3.0 release?  When do we stop making 
incompatible changes?

--vin

Re: Incompatibility in zsh-3.0-pre3 ?

[Zoltan Hidvegi]

> pws@ifh.de said:
> > This is due to the change that {, }, and [[ are treated as `reserved 
> > words' --- which basically means they have to appear separately on 
> > the command line.  This is for compatibility (repeat mantra 57 times 
> > :-/).

Actually it also makes the lexer slightly simpler.

> I just want to go on record as stating that I think this is really NOT a good
> thing.  IMO, *way* too many scripts and functions are going to break.  Bart's

Seeing the great opposition I'll probably reverse this change in the next
release (these will remain reserved words but will be treated more
specially).

> Big picture questions: How can we have major changes like this shortly before
> a release?  What's the timeframe for the 3.0 release?  When do we stop making
> incompatible changes?

I think that if an incompatible change is necessary it must be done before
3.0 is out.

Zoltan

Re: Incompatibility in zsh-3.0-pre3 ?

[Zefram]

>> I just want to go on record as stating that I think this is really NOT a good
>> thing.  IMO, *way* too many scripts and functions are going to break.  Bart's
>
>Seeing the great opposition I'll probably reverse this change in the next
>release (these will remain reserved words but will be treated more
>specially).

Actually, I think the new behaviour is preferable, though when I first
heard about it I was of the same opinion as the writer you quote
above.  It's really very easy to correct those scripts that break
(though that is rather a lot of them).

-zefram