why is SHINSTDIN an option?

why is SHINSTDIN an option?

[Richard J. Coleman]

Is there any reason for SHINSTDIN to be an option?
In the code, it seems to primarily be used a global variable
keeping track of where the input stream is coming from.  Since
the code changes it so often, is there any time where a user
would want to set this himself?

rc

Re: why is SHINSTDIN an option?

[Zefram]

>Is there any reason for SHINSTDIN to be an option?
>In the code, it seems to primarily be used a global variable
>keeping track of where the input stream is coming from.  Since
>the code changes it so often, is there any time where a user
>would want to set this himself?

I was wondering that myself.  It doesn't actually seem to be very
meaningful.  Its only purpose seems to be to allow user code to test
it, but I don't see why one would want to do that -- INTERACTIVE is a
better test of interactiveness.

But the corresponding command line option, -s, must remain, so I
recommend that SHINSTDIN should stay.  I think, however, it should
become read-only, like INTERACTIVE.  It is already read-only in the
Bourne shell here.

-zefram

Re: why is SHINSTDIN an option?

[Barton E. Schaefer]

On Apr 11, 12:13am, Richard J. Coleman wrote:
} Subject: why is SHINSTDIN an option?
}
} Is there any reason for SHINSTDIN to be an option?
} is there any time where a user would want to set this himself?

I think it's an option mostly so it can be tested, rather than set.

    if [[ -o shinstdin ]]
    then
	echo "I was run with 'zsh < somefile', so \$0 is zsh"
    else
	echo "I was run with 'zsh $0' or '. $0' or just as '$0'"
    fi

I suppose there might be some reason to want to spoof the above by
setopt/unsetopt of shinstdin, but I can't think of one offhand.

Further, it could conceivably have other uses, particularly as a
command-line option.  Consider:

    #! /usr/local/bin/zsh -s
    echo This does not happen.

I'd be reluctant to eliminate the option, if that's what you are
thinking about.

-- 
Bart Schaefer                     Vice President, Technology, Z-Code Software
schaefer@z-code.com                  Division of NCD Software Corporation
http://www.well.com/www/barts