Re: Array assignment? Funny prompt magic?

[Stephane Chazelas <Stephane_Chazelas@xxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, Dec 10, 2008 at 08:12:32AM -0800, Webb Sprague wrote:
> HI all,
> 
> (II know I should be digging through the docs, but this is so easy and
> I get such great answers!)
> 
> (1) Is x=($y) the correct way to assign an array to x?  I worry that
> first $y gets converted to text, then mangled with ().

If $y is an array, then

x=($y)

will copy the non empty elements of $y into a new $x array, you
want:

x=("${y[@]}")
to also copy the empty elements. the above creates an exact copy
of the array.

If $y is a scalar,

x=($y)

creates an array of 0 or 1 elements depending on whether $y is
empty or not. You want:

x=("$y")
if you want $x to contain only one element which is the content
of $y (regardless of whether it's empty or not).

If $y is an associative array:

x=($y)
will make an array of the non-empty values (not the keys) of the
associative array.

If $y is a scalar and you want it split (word splitting using
$IFS as in other shells), you should do:

x=($=y)

if you also want filename generation to be performed on each of
the resulting words from the splitting (that is for instance if
you want "*" to be replaced by the list of files in the current
directory), you should do:

x=($=~y)

which would then be the equivalent of bash's
z=($y)

> (2) Is there a way to set the names of the background processes for
> the prompt?  I use %j to count the number of them, but a list that
> goes like "%vim, %vim, %man" (or some such) would be great.  My
> analogy is to completing backrounded jobs with "fg <TAB>"
[...]

See the $jobtexts special associative array:

$ sleep 1000 &
[1] 11165
$ printf '%s => %s\n' "${(@kv)jobstates}"
1 => running:+:11165=running
$ printf '%s => %s\n' "${(@kv)jobtexts}"
1 => sleep 1000
$ echo ${(t)jobtexts}
association-readonly-hide-hideval-special

-- 
Stéphane