Re: [Nmh-workers] [PATCH] scan message numbers from stdin

[Paul Fox]

chris wrote:
 > I meant to say "-n1" below.

i wondered about that, but because i didn't understand why you
meant "-n" at all.  scan normally processes all of its args, so
why present messages one at a time?

paul

 > 
 > On Aug 19, 2008, at 12:49 PM, Chris Garrigues wrote:
 > 
 > > It occurs to me that aside from efficiency issues, that "| xargs -n  
 > > scan" currently does the same thing as "|scan -" does with the patch.
 > >
 > >
 > > On Aug 19, 2008, at 11:08 AM, Michael O'Dell wrote:
 > >
 > >> sorry - i was very unclear in my comment
 > >>
 > >> my point was that...
 > >>
 > >> if the commands are going to take text from stdin
 > >> for the purpose of emulating "command line behavior",
 > >> then the parsing must indeed emulate SHELL parsing
 > >> lest it create a massive violation of
 > >>
 > >>   The Law of Least Amazement
 > >>
 > >> (KRE can forgive the spelling as required - grin)
 > >>
 > >> so how does the following not do what is desired?
 > >>
 > >>   echo 1 2 3 4 5 | xargs scan
 > >>
 > >> if so, in the original spirit of MH,
 > >> exactly what needs fixing?
 > >>
 > >>   -mo
 > >>
 > >>
 > >>
 > >>
 > >> Michael O'Dell wrote:
 > >>> uh, "whitespace between message numbers" is parsed by the SHELL
 > >>> not the MH commands. the commands never see whitespace unless
 > >>> it's quoted
 > >>>     -mo
 > >>> Eric Gillespie wrote:
 > >>>> Peter Maydell writes:
 > >>>>
 > >>>>> Is there any reason why it shouldn't allow any random  
 > >>>>> whitespace between
 > >>>>> message numbers?
 > >>>>
 > >>>> Room for future expansion?  Folders with spaces in names?
 > >>>> I'm just used to thinking of newline-delimited rows, I guess.
 > >>>> I'm slightly against allowing spaces, but only slightly.  I guess
 > >>>> if I implement folder changing later, we could say not to put
 > >>>> message numbers after folders; anything between + and newline is
 > >>>> the folder name.
 > >>>>
 > >>>>>> Peter Maydell writes:
 > >>>>>>> I think that it would be nice if 'scan 4 1 2' actually output  
 > >>>>>>> the messages
 > >>>>>>> in the order stated on the command line. I also think that it  
 > >>>>>>> would be
 > >>>>>> I, too, would rather 'scan 3 4' print the lines in that order
 > >>>>>> (first 3, then 4).
 > >>>>> That it already does. The question is what it does (or should  
 > >>>>> do) if you
 > >>>>> say 'scan 4 3'.
 > >>>>
 > >>>> Oops, of course I meant 'scan 4 3'.  Obviously 'scan 3 4'
 > >>>> couldn't possibly print the messages in any order but 3, 4 :).
 > >>>>
 > >>>>> Just for consistency (and because you'd probably want to  
 > >>>>> implement it
 > >>>>> by having common code for doing this).
 > >>>>
 > >>>> I'll take a whack at it, as long as it doesn't mean refactoring
 > >>>> too much old, painful code.
 > >>>>
 > >>>>> less at least seems happy with
 > >>>>> stdin being /dev/null, as does my editor, so I think that  
 > >>>>> argument is
 > >>>>> a red herring.
 > >>>>
 > >>>> Huh, OK.  Bad assumption on my part.
 > >>>>
 > >>>>> Sounds good. (I couldn't remember whether nmh wrote sequences
 > >>>>> in sorted order.)
 > >>>>
 > >>>> Near as I can tell, it never deals with message numbers in
 > >>>> anything but sorted order, by the very nature of the structure it
 > >>>> uses for them.
 > >>>>
 > >>>>> line not being sorted either). [I appreciate that doing things  
 > >>>>> this
 > >>>>> way would be a fairly big change, though.]
 > >>>>
 > >>>> We'll see.  I'll start with show; do you have any other commands
 > >>>> in mind?  I'm just not feeling foo | refile; I don't see any way
 > >>>> it's better than refile `foo`, unlike scan and show, where you
 > >>>> want to see immediate output.
 > >>>>
 > >>>> Thanks.
 > >>>>
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 > >>> http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/nmh-workers
 > >>
 > >>
 > >>
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 > >
 > >
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=---------------------
 paul fox, address@hidden (arlington, ma, where it's 66.6 degrees)