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From: Terry Lambert <terry@Artisoft.com>
Message-Id: <199508301801.LAA18783@phaeton.artisoft.com>
Subject: Re: What do you think of these patches to echo?
To: bde@zeta.org.au (Bruce Evans)
Date: Wed, 30 Aug 1995 11:01:39 -0700 (MST)
Cc: current@freebsd.org, jkh@time.cdrom.com
In-Reply-To: <199508301715.DAA15517@godzilla.zeta.org.au> from "Bruce Evans" at Aug 31, 95 03:15:46 am
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> 
> >Subject: What do you think of these patches to echo?
> >...
> >Synopsis:
> >	add \c handling to echo (at the end of an arglist, is
> >	synonymous with echo -n ...)
> 
> :-(.

8-).

I hate shell scripts that use \c or -n coming from the net and having
half of them work on one box and half work on another.

Since \c is an undefined escape otherwise, I see no problem with
allowing it.

On the other hand, all of my scripts intended to be portable will still
use:

#
# define "echon"
#
ECHON=`echo -n`
if test "x$ECHO" = "x-n"
then
	ECHON=xechoc
else
	ECHON=xechon
fi

xechoc() {
	echo "$*\c"
}

xechon() {
	echo -n "$*"
}

echon() {
	$ECHON "$*"
}

...

echon "what do you want? "
read x



No shell functions allowed?

#
# define "echon"
#
ECHON=`echo -n`
if test "x$ECHO" = "x-n"
then
	ECHON="echo"
	ENSUF="\c"
else
	ECHON="echo -n"
	ENSUF=""
fi


$ECHON "what do you want? $ENSUF"
read x


Please, save me from this abomination!  Commit the changes!


					Terry Lambert
					terry@lambert.org
---
Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
or previous employers.