Hi Eric, > If we did return the value of shell scripts then ":results value" would > almost always simply return 0 (or possibly an error message). For this > reason shell code blocks do not implement value returns, but rather will > always collect results from STDOUT.
I think that this unnecessarily throws away potentially useful functionality. Example: I want to fill a table with data such that the value of a cell depends on whether a file (whose path is specified by another cell, for instance) exists or not. This would be most easily done using an sh block which returns a numeric exit code. I don't see a reason for making clandestine exceptions to the rules in the manual and strongly suggest that the output and value options be honoured for every language. In order not to break existing Org files, I would suggest that the default choice between value and output (when not explicitly specified) depend on the language. With this functionality, sh code blocks that don't specify ":results output" will still work as they did before. András
