Re: Just to make sure I'm understanding it...

[Peter Stephenson <pws@csr.com>]

DervishD wrote:
>     Well, in function 'insert-files' there is a line, just at the
> beginning, that reads 'files=( *(N) )', and I want to make sure I
> understand it. Since it starts with a parenthesis, it is (AFAIK) a
> candidate for filename generation. The asterisk seems to be the
> pattern an the 'N' in the parentheses is a glob qualifier (namely the
> 'set NULL_GLOB for this pattern' qualifier). What I don't understand
> is, why the spaces around the pattern and the qualifier?

They're optional, they're just there for readability.

  files=(*(N))

will work but looks like the logo of a secret society.  What you're
probably missing is the the outer parentheses are there to turn the
assignment into an array assignment, they're nothing to do with
globbing.  In this case the place where you can't have spaces is around
the `='.

  files=(
     *(N)
  )

works, too.  It's one of the advantages of arrays --- you can make the
assignments much neater.

However,

  files=*(N)

*doesn't* work.  The right hand side of normal assignment doesn't do
globbing (unless you have the option GLOB_ASSIGN set, which we don't
recommend).  This was changed a while ago: the problem was that if there
were multiple matches, an array assignment was done, while if there was
just one, because of the use of scalar syntax a scalar assignment was
done.  The new arrangement (with GLOB_ASSIGN unset) is much neater.

-- 
Peter Stephenson <pws@csr.com>                  Software Engineer
CSR Ltd., Science Park, Milton Road,
Cambridge, CB4 0WH, UK                          Tel: +44 (0)1223 692070


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