Re: feature suggestion: ability to expand a set of elements of an array or characters of a scalar, given their indices

[Zachary Santer]

On Wed, Jun 26, 2024 at 10:58 AM Chet Ramey <chet.ramey@case.edu> wrote:
>
> On 6/11/24 6:48 AM, Zachary Santer wrote:
>
> > My mind returns to this nonsense, as I find a use for it.
> >
> > Imagine this functionality:
> > $ array=( zero one two three four five six )
> > $ printf '%s\n' "${array[@]( 1 5 )}"
> > one
> > five
>
> I'm not inclined to implement this. I don't like the syntax and there are
> already other ways to get the values you want.

Within a single array expansion, the other way I can think of would be
building the array you need out of elements of the other array you
started with, then expanding that. I did have the thought that without
${parameter:offset:length}, there'd really be no way to get the same
effect, for a scalar variable, outside of doing something really
obnoxious with a here string and read commands in a { } group.
Whereas, what I proposed here is much more of a nice-to-have.

If you wanted to achieve this functionality, I'm not sure what a
better syntax would be.

I did want to see if others would find this valuable, and no one spoke
up, so it's whatever.