>
> switch/case would make helluva difference over nested if/if not, if
> defaulted to fall-through.
maybe you have an example? because i don't see that. if not works
fine, and can be nested. case without fallthrough is also generally
what i want. if not, i can make the common stuff a function.
> variable scoping (better than subshel) would help writing larger
> scripts, but that's not necessarily an improvement ;-) something
> similar to LISP's `let' special form, for dynamic binding.
there is variable scoping. you can write
x=() y=() cmd
cmd can be a function body or whatever. x and y are then private
to cmd. you can nest redefinitions.
x=1 y=2 {echo first $x $y; x=a y=b {echo second $x $y; x=α y=β {echo
third $x $y}; echo ret second $x $y}; echo ret first $x $y}
first 1 2
second a b
third α β
ret second a b
ret first 1 2
you should try the es shell. es had let and some other scheme-y
features. let allows one to do all kinds of tricky stuff, like build
a shell debugger in the shell, but my opinion is that es was more
powerful and fun, but it didn't buy enough because it didn't really
expand on the essential nature of a shell. what can one do to
manipulate processes and file descriptors.
- erik
