Hi Coders,
I've been considering turning my fuzzy string compare function into a
library.
/**
* the fstrcmp function comparse two strings, to determine how
* simlar two strings appear.
*
* @param s1
* The first of the strings to compare.
* @param s2
* The second of the strings to compare.
* @returns
* a number between 0.0 and 1.0; 0.0 means the strings are
* nothing alike, 1.0 means the two strings are identical.
*/
double fstrcmp(const char *s1, const char *s2);
I've been using it for something like 15 years, and the side effects are
pretty addictive.
My immediate motivation is that apt-get is driving me crazy.
Wouldn't it be great if when you typed
apt-get build-deps gcc
instead of saying
E: Invalid operation build-deps
it said something more useful, like
E: Invalid operation build-deps, did you mean build-dep instead?
This goes for packages as well. Wouldn't it be great if
apt-get install dns-utils
instead of saying
E: Couldn't find package dns-utils
it said something more useful, like
E: Couldn't find package dns-utils, did you mean dnsutils instead?
Both of these things are possible with fstrcmp.
fstrcmp would have some interesting friends in the same library,
like
double fmemcmp(const void *d1, size_t sz1, const void *d2,
size_t sz2)
and
double fobjcmp(const void *d1, size_t sz1, const void *d2,
size_t sz2, int (*cmp)(const void *o1, const void *o2), size_t
objsize);
There are obvious benefits for compiler error messages, too. (I have
written compilers using it.)
And think home much better bash could be!
$ aptget install dnsutils
bash: aptget: command not found, did you mean apt-get instead?
$
But first I need fstrcmp in a library. Do I make a fstrcmp its own
library, or do I contribute it to an existing project and which one?
--
Regards
Peter Miller <pmil...@opensource.org.au>
/\/\* http://www.canb.auug.org.au/~millerp/
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