Re: newbie, scripting problems..

[Per Blomqvist <p.blomqvist@xxxxxxx>]

Okey..

I manage to put something together, that works in both Bash and Zsh.
( bash (V 3.1.17(1)-release), And Zsh (V 4.3.4) )

http://phoohb.shellkonto.se/pbev/pbtexts/pbackup.zsh
(a backup-script, mostly English comments)

http://phoohb.shellkonto.se/pbev/pbtexts/pbstone.zsh
(a game, sorry but mostly swedish comments.. )


Marry Christmas, and happy new years, and all that_!

Bart Schaefer wrote:
> On Dec 23,  1:43pm, Per Blomqvist wrote:
> } 
> } Im newbie in shell (zsh).
> 
> Welcome.

thx.

> } I rewriting a bash-script, to function also in this "Zsh". And running
> } into a several problems...:
> 
> Unless your goal is to learn how to write the script in "native" zsh,
> you may want to start by placing
> 	emulate sh
> somewhere near the top.  This will reduce the number of changes that
> you need to make.  You say later that you want the script to run in
> bash as well, so something like
> 
> 	[[ -n $ZSH_VERSION ]] && emulate sh

I cant see any bigger difference, between bash and zsh script.

"emulate sh" fixed the wildchars test though, I cant find any reference
to the "$~var" statements.

> However, I'll answer here a question that's going to come up later:
> Arrays are an extension to standard POSIX shell syntax, so there is no
> requirement that they be implemented in compatible ways in different
> shells.  It's possible to write a script that will run in both bash and
> zsh, but it's not possible in any straightforward way to write a script
> using array syntax that will run unmodified in both bash and zsh.
> 
> } 1. Cant make a dynamic loaded array. In bash:
> } ToBe[${#ToBe[@]}]="$BTheFile" (that I do inside a loop, with some condition)
> 
> Depending on how ToBe received its initial value, the problem is likely
> twofold:  (1) In zsh, variables are scalars unless either assigned with
> the var=( words... ) syntax or declared in advance with "typeset -a var"
> (sometimes written as the synonymous "declare -a var").  (2) Scalars in
> zsh can be subscripted to extract or modify substrings.
> 
> So first try adding
> 	[[ -n $ZSH_VERSION ]] && declare -a ToBe
> somewhere before its first use (outside the loop).  That should fix the 
> assignment you show above.
> 
> Then you may want to try changing the assignment to
> 
>     ToBe+=( "$BTheFile" )

This one also worked in Bash, on the fly.
/I never declare any variables, and it didnt seams necessary in zsh nether.

> which is a somewhat more efficient way to append to an array in recent
> versions of zsh.  You didn't say which version you have, so it may not
> work for you.
> 
> } 2. Wildchars, or if its spelled wildcharts. Test of these. Wild
> } something I saw in some docs, was this zsh fancy thing. In Bash, this
> } works: "[[ $A = $B ]] && then do something" (there $A maybe a file , and
> } $B a wildstring as "*.avi")
> 
> It's "wildchars" or "glob patterns" or often just "patterns".
> 
> This is one of those things that would be fixed by "emulate sh".  The
> real zsh way is
> 
> 	[[ $A = $~B ]]
>  
> In "native" zsh, variable expansions are implicitly quoted, and need to
> be un-quoted in various specific ways in to behave like traditional
> /bin/sh variables.  Another case is $=B which is needed to split the
> value into words on whitespace.

$=B ?
(didnt do anything)

> } 3. "read" didnt read space-separated lines as arrays, by default. But
> } did with option "-A". BUT this caused error if I later runned the script
> } as Bash. (I want it to be both bash and zsh compatible)
> 
> See the remark above about array incompatibility.  However, I think the
> real problem here is not with reading into the variable, but with
> splitting the value on spaces when you refer to it.  Bash "read" does
> not input space-separated lines as arrays, either.  This is another
> case that I suspect will be fixed by "emulate sh", but in native zsh
> you probably want to use the $=B form when referring to the variable
> into which your space-separated line was read.
> 
> } Some more fuzz, I made some clouds in awk
> } #aaa=$( echo "one two three" | awk '{ ORS=" "; print "(";  i=1; while (i
> } <= NF) { print "\""$i"\"" ; i++ } print ")\n" }' )
> } # Then the new ("one" "two" "tree") is still only one single string.
> 
> Two things are going on here:  (1) Like variable references, variable
> assignments are not split on whitespace by default in zsh unless they
> are array assignments of the aaa=( words... ) form.  (2) Parens as a
> syntax element are parsed BEFORE substitutions are done, so the fact
> that your awk statement printed a leading and trailing paren has no
> syntactic significance to the shell parser.  They're just ordinary
> characters and become part of the string assigned to $aaa.
> 
> Problem (1) is, again, fixed by "emulate sh".  For problem (2) you'll
> have to remove the parens from what awk prints.
> 
> } # THIS WORKS:
> } # aaa=( $( echo "one two three" | awk '{ ORS=" "; i=1; while (i <= NF) {
> } print "\""$i"\"" ; i++ } }' ) )
> 
> That would be the traditional zsh way of doing it.
> 
> } One more question, how does "fish" compare to "zsh"?
> 
> I'm not very familiar with "fish" but on a quick once-over:
> 
> (1) Fish makes no attempt to conform to traditional POSIX syntax.  It
>     has syntax that looks more like python or csh.  This theoretically
>     makes it easy to learn, but there's never going to be such a thing
>     as a professional fish programmer - it's strictly a shell for
>     casual users and hobbyists.
> (2) The fish editor and completion system are (in operation, not in
>     completion programming) much like zsh's.  I won't go so far as to
>     suggest "modeled on" but I wouldn't be surprised.
> (3) The main feature fish has that zsh doesn't is interactive syntax
>     highlighting in multiple colors.
>  
> 


-- 
Mvh, Per Blomqvist
Web: http://phoohb.shellkonto.se
Telnr: +46 70-3355632