* Bob Friesenhahn wrote on Sun, Apr 20, 2008 at 02:42:00AM CEST: > On Sun, 20 Apr 2008, Ralf Wildenhues wrote: >> >> Sorry, but: first, there is no floating point in either Libtool, nor >> Posix shell semantics. Second, if you can prove to me (by posting >> timing comparisons) that conversion from integer to string or vice >> versa, has *any* performance impact whatsoever on Libtool, I'll gladly >> send lots of beer your way. I mean hey, we still fork quite a bit, and > > While for our purposes it is indeed unlikely that we can measure the > difference, it seems that the code should use the most "correct" > implementation if using it requires minimal effort.
There is no "more" or "less" correct in this case. > If all shells > supporting this math syntax also support the native math types (which > they likely do since this syntax comes from old ksh), then is there a > reason why we would not prefer the "native" syntax for math if we are > doing math? Is there a ripple effect? Yes. The factoring into a shell function which supports Posix syntax and a shell function which does the same but using expr is a lot simpler. Apart from all this reasoning, I doubt that the shell *has* to convert integers with (($x)); it looks like that would be a quality of implementation issue. Of course, Libtool doesn't used typed variables at all, they are not Posix, and I guess factorizing that for ksh especially is not worth the effort. But hey, try it out and prove me wrong with your timings. Cheers, Ralf
