Re: RFA: >, >>, and "tee" operators

[Daniel Jacobowitz <drow at mvista dot com>]

On Thu, Jul 25, 2002 at 01:36:29PM -0400, Andrew Cagney wrote:
> >I think this was raised before (fernando and I discussed it somewhere on 
> >>gdb@).  GDB is used on systems that are not even UNIX like (namely 
> >>DJGPP), trying to tie the syntax to UNIX is such a good idea.  GDB needs 
> >>a syntax spec, the current piece meal aproach is regrettable :-(
> >>
> >>If the command was called ``log'' rather than ``tee'' then I don't think 
> >>we would have problems with ``log -a''.  (I'm not saying that log is the 
> >>right name mind.)
> >
> >
> >Well, I find the DOS-ish '/' separator much nastier than '-' options. 
> 
> The `/' would most likely have come from VMS or a precursor.  VMS has 
> [had?] a remarkably well structured (too well structured?) CLI interface 
> (I show my heritage :-).

Before my day :)

> >A question of personal taste.  ``log'' unfortunately is more like
> >``tee'' than it is like redirection; how about a simple ``redirect''
> >command?
> >
> >  redirect [-a[ppend]] FILE [COMMAND]
> >  log [-a[ppend]] FILE [COMMAND]
> 
> Or `log/a FILE [COMMAND]'  or, hmm, something like:
> 
> 	set log write FILE
> 	set log redirect FILE
> 	set log append FILE
> 	show log
> 
> and
> 
> 	log[/a] FILE command-that-isn't-optional
> 
> Same for redirect.

I don't know about that... write/redirect/append aren't really mutually
exclusive (it's overwrite/append and redirect/tee), and that doesn't
mesh with the feeling of a set command.

> Are you proposing that ``print/FMT'' gets replaced by ``print -FMT''. 
> There shouldn't be two conflicting syntaxes.

Well, I don't have a problem with reserving / for FMT sequences
(anything that modifies how output is printed) and - for options
(anything that modifies what gets done).  I think '/' is only used for
format sequences right now; at least I don't see anything otherwise in
the manual besides display, print, and x.  Heck, I actually think
separating format specifiers and options this way is intuitive.


So in other words, I'd like to stick with 
> >  redirect [-a[ppend]] FILE [COMMAND]
> >  log [-a[ppend]] FILE [COMMAND]

-- 
Daniel Jacobowitz                           Carnegie Mellon University
MontaVista Software                         Debian GNU/Linux Developer