> >According to [EMAIL PROTECTED] on 10/29/2006 3:39 AM: >> Why is it that word splitting never makes a distinction between >> newlines and space? > >Because POSIX, and tradition, say so. > >> Because the output of grep -l, and ls, etc are >> clearly newline delimited. > >That is a flawed argument. Filenames can contain newlines.
That is an even more flawed response. In practice how many such filenames have you every come across. I have come across 0, nil, none. Besides, a newline need only be treated like any other non-printing character. It would hardly be sensible to have something that occurs 0.0001% of the time dictate policy for what might occur >1% of the time. >The only SAFE >way to pass arbitrary filenames is null-delimited, if you are truly >worried about metacharacters in the name. That is not SAFE and not a good idea. You cannot easily process such a set with a text editor, sed, tr, etc. It flies right in the face of what Unix is supposed to be about. >True, spaces are more common >than newlines, but if you are going for safety, then go all the way. I think usability is about 1000 times more important than safety, especially when using the term "safe" is used in such a loose and non-specific way. i > >> It is bash (and others) which quite deliberately >> reduce available information by converting all newlines and whitespace >> into a single space. > >Only when told to do so by IFS on underquoted variable expansions and >process substitutions. I am still waiting for somebody to show how IFS can be used to solve this problem. > >> >> Something simple like "vi $(^grep -l xx *)" would do. >> The ^ might work because it denotes line-orientated regex (and nobody >> uses it for pipes any more). > >Actually, that is well-defined by POSIX to invoke the command '^grep'. If >you are going to propose a new operator, you had better choose one that >POSIX leaves unspecified. But you are correct that no one uses ^ for >pipes any more - POSIX does not allow ^ to mean pipes. > I am sure you get my meaning. Just a matter of finding the right character and/or syntax. BTW which comes first - innovation or POSIX mandate? Regards Bahser _______________________________________________ Bug-bash mailing list Bug-bash@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-bash
