On 8/23/06, Philip Ganchev <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On 8/22/06, Axel Liljencrantz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > [...] > > You would be able to do both always, since they provide the same > > functionality. The main differences are in discoverability and ease of > > use. Relevant points: > > I guess the only reason a builtin may be less discoverable than a > variable is that there are much fewer variables (and that other shells > use a variable). > > > * Fish uses a 'random' builtin instead of a $RANDOM varaible as bash > > does, because it really is more a function than a variable (It changes > > dynamically every time you use it, but always in the same order - > > that's pretty far from how other variables work), and because I though > > it would be easier to find out about a builtin than a function. > > By the way, is there a reason why "random" should not be an external > program instead of a builtin? > > > * $history allows you to do neat things like array slicing because it > > is an array and fish has some pretty nice tools for manipulating > > arrays. > [...] > > I think you are saying that if "history" was a builtin, then using > array splicing would be more verbose: ``set history (history); echo > $history[2]``. I guess this can be alleviated by using a hack like > ``(history | get 2 4)``. Of course, it would be nicer if > ``(history)[2 4]`` worked.
I implemented command substitution slicing as per above. You can now write 'echo (ls -S)[6]' to get the name of the largest file in the directory. Just like array indices, negative indices are from the end, so 'echo (ls)[-1]' means the name of the smallest file in the directory. The patch is in the darcs tree if anyone wants to try it out. -- Axel ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Using Tomcat but need to do more? Need to support web services, security? Get stuff done quickly with pre-integrated technology to make your job easier Download IBM WebSphere Application Server v.1.0.1 based on Apache Geronimo http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnk&kid=120709&bid=263057&dat=121642 _______________________________________________ Fish-users mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/fish-users
