bash futures

[Mark Borges <mdb@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I pulled this from the bash FAQ. I thought it would be interesting to
compare where bash is going to where zsh is going (in some cases where
zsh already is). It does give some indication of what Chet thinks is
important and how that compares with priorites of the zsh-workers.

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31) What's coming in future versions?

There will be no new features in future releases of version 1.14.

The next major release, bash-2.0, will contain extensive changes and new
features.  Here's a short list:

one-dimensional arrays with a new compound assignment statement,
        appropriate expansion constructs and modifications to some
	of the builtins (read, declare, etc.) to use them
new expansions to do ANSI-C string expansion, locale-specific string
	translation, substring extraction, pattern replacement, and
	indirect variable expansion
new builtins: `disown' and `shopt'
new variables: HISTIGNORE, SHELLOPTS, PIPESTATUS, DIRSTACK, GLOBIGNORE
special handling of many unused or redundant variables removed
dynamic loading of new builtin commands; many loadable examples provided
new prompt expansions: \e, \n, \H, \T, \@
new readline variables: enable-keypad, mark-directories, input-meta
new readline commands to manipulate the mark and operate on the region
new readline emacs mode commands and bindings for ksh-88 compatibility
updated and extended builtins
new DEBUG trap
expanded (and now documented) restricted shell mode
the `time' reserved word to time pipelines, shell builtins, and shell
	functions

implementation stuff:	
autoconf-based configuration
nearly all of the bugs reported since version 1.14 have been fixed
most builtins converted to use builtin `getopt' for consistency
most builtins use -p option to display output in a reusable form
	(for consistency)
grammar tighter and smaller (66 reduce-reduce conflicts gone)
lots of code now smaller and faster
test suite greatly expanded

32) What's on the bash `wish list'?

Programmable completion a la zsh
menu completion a la tcsh
the ksh egrep-style extended pattern matching operators
associative arrays (not really all that hard)
breaking some of the shell functionality into embeddable libraries
better internationalization using GNU `gettext'
an option to use external files for the long `help' text
a bash debugger

Much of this will not be in bash-2.0.

33) When will the next release appear?

Version 1.14.6 will probably be the last release for version 1.14.

The next version will appear sometime in 1996.  Never make predictions.

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-- 
  -mb-