Re: ZSH's future [longish] ?

[Mark Borges <mdb@cdc.noaa.gov>]

Thanks for the comments, Zoltan.

>> On Thu, 26 Oct 1995 16:13:26 +0100 (MET),
>> Zoltan Hidvegi(Z) wrote:

>> The code should conform to the IEEE POSIX 1003.1 standard and to
>> the proposed ANSI-C standard so that it should be portable to all
>> such

Z> Thanks to Richard, zsh is one of the most portable program I've
Z> ever seen.  I think ksh could'n beat it.

Yes, I agree. Richard should take a bow here ;-).

Z> and command line editing is unbeatable.

Yep. zle wins over readline in my book.

>> o Arrays: KSH-93 supports both indexed and associative arrays. The
>> subscript for an indexed array is an arithmetic expression,
>> whereas, the subscript for an associative array is a string.

Z> I think zsh provides all of these array features.  Some of this
Z> code is broken in the baseline version, but I fixed these problems
Z> long ago.

Does zsh support associative arrays?

Z> But it can also be used as a powerful script language.  An example:
Z> with my releases the expansion of ${${(f)$(</etc/group)}%%:*} gives
Z> the list of the group names from /etc/groups.

Uh-oh. If I use the (f) qualifier I only get the first line -- without
it, I get all the group names in a single line separated by
whitespace. A bug in my (old) hzoli version -- 2.6-beta11-test7-hzoli11 --
perhaps? 

Thanks again everyone for the comments. 

Unless I receive some objections, I plan to collect information from
this thread and create a summary article to put on the web site. With
proper credits/acknowledgements, of course.

  -mb-