Re: Manpage improvement

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

On Sep 28,  4:00pm, Peter Stephenson wrote:
} Subject: Re: Manpage improvement
}
} > x11amp "${(@f)$(locate Argentina|grep .mp3)}"
} >
} > I hope this might qualify as an example to spice up future zsh
} > manpages.
} 
} Here's a change to the manual source which should make this sort of
} thing a little clearer.

The first hunk of Peter's patch fails if you've applied my collection
of man page patches, posted a couple of months ago over the course of
several weeks.  Here's a patch that will apply on top of my previous
patches.

I've taken the liberty of changing

    prints the variables tt($foo) after deleting both the head and tail
    from the value.

to

    substitues the value of tt($foo) with both tt(head) and tt(tail)
    deleted.

My previous patch had already added a subsection "Parameter Expansion
Flags" where Peter's added "Flags".

If you tried to apply Peter's patch and got one failed hunk and one
succeeded hunk, you can delete the second hunk from the patch below
and apply only the first hunk.

Index: Doc/Zsh/expn.yo
===================================================================
--- expn.yo	1998/08/27 15:56:33	1.6
+++ expn.yo	1998/09/28 16:32:22
@@ -450,7 +450,11 @@
 If a tt(${)...tt(}) type parameter expression or a
 tt($LPAR())...tt(RPAR()) type command substitution is used in place of
 var(name) above, it is substituted first and the result is used as if
-it were the value of var(name).
+it were the value of var(name).  Thus it is
+possible to perform nested operations:  tt(${${foo#head}%tail})
+substitues the value of tt($foo) with both tt(head) and tt(tail)
+deleted.  The form with tt($LPAR())...tt(RPAR()) is often useful in
+combination with the flags described next; see the example below.
 
 subsect(Parameter Expansion Flags)
 cindex(parameter expansion flags)
@@ -567,6 +571,17 @@
 Include the length of the match in the result.
 )
 enditem()
+subsect(Example)
+The flag tt(f) is useful to split a double-quoted substitution line by
+line.  For example,
+
+nofill(var(cmd) tt("${)tt(LPAR()f)tt(RPAR()$)tt(LPAR()<)var(file)tt(RPAR()}"))
+
+will substitue the contents of var(file) divided so that one line is
+supplied per argument to var(cmd).  Compare this with the effect of
+tt($)tt(LPAR()<)var(file)tt(RPAR()) alone, which divides the file
+up by words, or the same inside double quotes, where the entire
+contents of the file are passed as a single argument.
 texinode(Command Substitution)(Arithmetic Expansion)(Parameter Expansion)(Expansion)
 sect(Command Substitution)
 cindex(command substitution)

-- 
Bart Schaefer                                 Brass Lantern Enterprises
http://www.well.com/user/barts              http://www.brasslantern.com