Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 20:25:19 -0400 From: Garance A Drosihn <drosih@rpi.edu> To: "J. Mallett" <jmallett@FreeBSD.ORG> Cc: cvs-all@FreeBSD.ORG, cvs-committers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: cvs commit: src/usr.bin/sed main.c sed.1 Message-ID: <p05111742b8fe1be2801c@[128.113.24.47]> In-Reply-To: <20020507233024.GC20078@FreeBSD.ORG> References: <20020507184519.GB28857@FreeBSD.ORG> <XFMail.20020507150637.jhb@FreeBSD.org> <20020507191959.GA26441@FreeBSD.ORG> <p0511173fb8fe1074d26d@[128.113.24.47]> <20020507232301.GB45271@electricjellyfish.net> <20020507233024.GC20078@FreeBSD.ORG>
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At 11:30 PM +0000 5/7/02, J. Mallett wrote: >I'd go so far as to say we're implementing a superset of Perl's >capabilities in sed(1), and as such, the "old code" provision >falls in. After all, if you re-implmeneted a whole utility, you >would want compatability. All we want is front-end compatability >with Perl. The options. If a user can not be bothered to use '-I .blah' instead of '-i.blah', then they can continue to use perl for all I care. We do need to be compatible with other versions of sed, but not with completely different commands. A user will only use the new -i or -I if they read the man page for sed, and if they do that then they don't need the optional-argument on -i (because they will know they can use -I). Or to state my feeling in a different way, you would support optional arguments like -i.blah only if it would break a script to not support it. There is no script which literally has 'sed -i.blah' right now, because the scripts are all using perl to do in-place editing. At the same time a user changes 'perl' to 'sed', they can change '-i.blah' to '-I .blah'. >Maybe there's a flaw in that logic. > >Maybe there's a flaw in conforming to a standard and breaking >POLA, where said standard has not been broken in existing >functionalities, just new ones, that furthermore, are covered >in and of themselves, directly or otherwise, by provisions >in said standard. I need more caffeine before I can parse that sentence... :-) In any case, over the years the standards have been less and less favorable to these optional arguments, because optional arguments are often a hassle precisely because they do not behave consistently. I gain much more (as a user) if I can use -i and know that it *never* will eat up the rest of the line, than I gain from being able to type -i.bak instead of '-I .bak'. I should note that don't feel too strongly about it, but I do really think it is better if we do not introduce any new options which take optional-arguments. It isn't just that I think it's a good idea to follow standards, but I think this is a case where the standards have the "right" (more user- friendly) idea. All of this is just my opinion, of course. Mainly I'm just happy to have this ability in sed, however the options work out. -- Garance Alistair Drosehn = gad@gilead.netel.rpi.edu Senior Systems Programmer or gad@freebsd.org Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute or drosih@rpi.edu To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe cvs-all" in the body of the message
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