Re: [Bashdb-devel] munge_list

[Masatake Y. <je...@gy...>]

Hi,

> > I'm reading readarray.c.
> >
> > I have two questions.
> >
> > 1. Is the function provided by munge_list needed anyway?
> 
> Well, it's used as the first statement of readarray_builtin. But is it
> really, really *needed*? Gee, I don't know. One could argue that
> readarray altogether is not needed. For example SuSE packman packages
> bashdb, and it doesn't use readarray. :-)
> 
> The form of that option models how head and tail work, e.g.:
>   head -10 /etc/motd

I understand the intent.
I removed munge_list from the in-cvs version of bashdb. However, I'll check
how bash's builtins handles options again.

> >    I'd like to remove because this option parsing policy(function)
> >    is not widly used in bash.
> 
> Ok. If there's someone out there that objects, that's why there's this
> mailling list. A guess is that there isn't much use of readarray
> outside of bashdb. So as long as bashdb still works without my having
> to patch it (but I don't mind if however you do the patching should
> there need to be any), I don't mind.

If readarray is a command independent of bash, I think readarray should 
have munge_list.

> >
> > 2. What does the * stand for in the following doc string:
> >
> >    "readarray [-t] [-c *count*] [-C callback] [-n *lines*] [-O *origin*] *file* *array_variable*"
> >
> >    `*'s are needed in *count*, *lines*, *origin*, *file* and *array_variable*?
> 
> This was to indicate a variable - something which is not typed in
> exactly but represents the kind of thing you'd type in. For example, not
> the string "*count*" but some sort of number, like 10. The use of
> putting a word surrounded by asterisks to indicate an italicized word
> I think was common in mailing lists like this one (See the first
> paragraph of my reply above) and in older forms of email before the
> days of HTML and other encodings.
> 
> >    I'd like to remove it because this notation is not popular
> >    in bash.
> 
> Sure. 
> 
> > Tell me the backgrounds if there are.
> 
> I am not sure I understand exactly what you mean here; but with luck
> I've done that somewhere in the above verbiage.

I understand the intent of `*'. Thank you. I thinks "-C callback" is a kind of variable.
So I think it should be "-C *callback*". Am I right?

I removed them and updated the document string yesterday. 
However, I'll check the other bash builtins.

Masatake