Re: cshjunkieparen bothers me (and always has)

["Bart Schaefer" <schaefer@candle.brasslantern.com>]

On Jul 1, 11:02pm, Zoltan Hidvegi wrote:
} Subject: Re: cshjunkieparen bothers me (and always has)
}
} Below is the documentation.  I do not know much about nroff so if something
} is wrong in it, tell me.

Looks OK to me.

On Jul 1, 10:35pm, Anthony Heading wrote:
} Subject: Re: cshjunkieparen bothers me (and always has)
}
} > ! Many of zsh's complex commands have alternate forms.  These particular
} >   versions of complex commands should be considered deprecated and may be
} >   removed in the future.  The versions in the previous section should be
} >   preferred instead.
} 
} If this syntax is being developed, it seems weird that it's deprecated.

The syntax isn't really being developed (except for my cshjunkietests
suggestion, which I put forth because I used to be a csh junkie).  What
has happened is that a special case to *reject* an otherwise reasonable
syntax has been *removed*; this is deconstruction, not construction.

} Does anyone really want to get rid of it?

Just before 2.5.0 was released, there was a big push among some of the zsh
maintainers to remove csh-like features from zsh in favor of faithfully
emulating ksh.  That faction no longer seems so vocal, probably because
zsh is now a more complete superset of ksh, so the fact that some extra
non-ksh syntax is available is less noticeable.

} If so, fine.  But if the sentiment is that these forms should be
} available without setting options

That isn't quite an accurate depiction.  These forms work for the same
reason that this kind of thing works:

	if true ; ; ; then
	    echo bash or ksh would give a syntax error on ';'
	fi

Zsh permits things like empty commands in a "list" syntax element and
other unambiguous combinations because it makes for a simpler parser.
It's actually more work in most cases to reject it than to accept it.

} shouldn't they:
}   a) be supported;
}   b) not be advised against in the manual?

I'd be all in favor of that.

-- 
Bart Schaefer                             Brass Lantern Enterprises
http://www.well.com/user/barts            http://www.nbn.com/people/lantern

New male in /home/schaefer:
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