From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 1637 invoked by alias); 17 Dec 2014 18:40:05 -0000 Mailing-List: contact zsh-workers-help@zsh.org; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk X-No-Archive: yes List-Id: Zsh Workers List List-Post: List-Help: X-Seq: 33998 Received: (qmail 7351 invoked from network); 17 Dec 2014 18:40:01 -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=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,HTML_MESSAGE, RCVD_IN_DNSWL_NONE,SPF_HELO_PASS autolearn=ham version=3.3.2 Message-ID: <5491CF6B.9080503@askmicah.net> Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2014 10:46:03 -0800 From: Micah Waddoups User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:31.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/31.2.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: zsh-workers@zsh.org Subject: Suggestion for ZSH, who do I send it to? Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="------------090503090009080700010202" X-Provags-ID: V02:K0:EIXWnEWjqA5w/uF99Y7FePwQrFeBHE3G6aOy54zmYpA qEnPdzB89kIuRM8KFGzAAs1iwtGA7UqQJN57GfujAi+ohwU/LW oHjyNfzPlkvSUioeXwbul5S2Jx2k+jnVuE/IRQ8lEZWBW7v4yS j5Sk+PkAoPmd0GoqtxEXTallr/TkLJPhbKZuOIM4RScfBBa5Qh 63Oqhf8cZ/RUsDR4STp8lG9Eini6QhfiypAzlCQhKKqFsSWhJe mSfEADptmQFqX5yVSkcJBzPNptXqDz5NLy9h1h8cTKTFjXGTiE OgPESrfw5JQdV7GXctiUTWD1EoWJCaRBJL1JrAtzqTInwYZ4C9 AZy2EdQ3L6TfqJapKbk6hBdH2UjuIFDOebykYQlkg X-UI-Out-Filterresults: notjunk:1; --------------090503090009080700010202 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit So, I have a few suggestions. Are you open to using GNU libraries in ZSH? If so, I was thinking how ZSH is so powerful (and easy to use), that it can actually handle all types of data -- like all 256 characters of ASCII. So with multibyte turned off that means binary, even if its a little slow. But here is the problem with dealing with binary, or unusual characters through ZSH, every operation requires using several ZSH builtin commands / variable expansions. This makes a process that converts data into something more usable on the input or the output very CPU heavy and inefficient. My suggestion is to add a few options to the sysread and syswrite builtins that come stock with ZSH in the system module: * -d : (sysread) to make the variable created an integer type containing the numerical value corresponding to the raw byte value, for -s 1; and for -s 2+ (reading more than a single byte), make it an array with each indice containing a string of decimal digit(s), whose numerical value is generated the same way, representing the value for each byte. * -h : (sysread) to make a string value that is two characters per input byte, representing the value of the byte in hexadecimal (padded with 0 if less than 16, and obviously as with above, a null would equal 00). This would make Zsh able to function for whatever given needs (boot environments, less prevalent unix-like systems) without having to supply an xxd program, and it would be much more efficient processing when any math is involved in the script. * -c : (syswrite) to make string the name of a variable who's value is processed in the same way as (( math context )) in hexadecimal, two digits at a time. In other words starting at the beginning of the string, convert two hexadecimal characters into one byte, then the next two, etc., and any characters that are members of the IFS variable are ignored and discarded, and any other encountered non-hexadecimal characters causing an error, and lastly any remaining single digit hexadecimal characters either ignored or converting to it's value as if it had a 0 in front of it (My suggestion leaves that up to you who program this). And my other suggestion is that you add support for (statically?) compiling with the GNU MPFR library, so that in systems where this is possible, super long numerical values can be handled in the math context (with the appropriate min and max precision variable set super long). This would make a half a dozen scripting situations work much better than running out of precision space whenever doing operations that shift the values several powers of 10 or 2 left or right. More importantly, depending on bc or gawk to run really long number calculations can be cumbersome and problematic if they are not present. While Zsh may not be intended to be a fix-all-do-all shell and scripting environment. I believe it has the potential to be both the best user-friendly environment and the most versatile rescue environment, capable of replacing all other command-line shells in unix systems. -- Micah micah@askmicah.net AskMicah.Net , Problem Solving Agency --------------090503090009080700010202--