Darren Reed wrote:
> Peter Memishian wrote:
>> > Please explain why using a whitespace character such as tab as the
>> > delimiter is unworkable.
>>
>> Because most shells will consolidate multiple consecutive whitespace
>> fields into a single field. Blank fields become unworkable.
>>
>> > My definition of parsable input means I can write a script like
>> > this in sh:
>> > > dladm -o state,over | while read a b; do
>> > echo "a=$a,b=$b"
>> > done
>>
>> That works, just set IFS=|
>>
>
> Yes, and maybe you'd like to provide a complete example so that
> it can be compared with the simplicity of what I presented above.
>
> Darren
>
Having to set IFS=| may make the example marginally more complex, but
it's unavoidable. A whitespace delimiter simply doesn't allow you to
deal with blank fields, and doing so is a key requirement.
I applaud your desire to make things as simple as possible, but not simpler.
Scott
