On Tue, 22 May 2007, Malcolm J. Currie wrote:
>> Having just seeing the traumas astronomers have getting their quotes
>> working correctly, I'm not keen on making more use of quotes!
>
> I was being even handed. Peter regarded my suggestion of a special
> character--it was W rather than *--- gives "a pretty unforgiving syntax"
> although his alternative with quotes was longer and that was without the
> escaping of quotes. I too want to avoid more quotes. I always
> have to pause to decide if I need '"blah"' or "'blah'". After battling
> with quotes in STILTS tpipe last year my view is avoid them if at all
> possible.
STILTS use of quotes is a good warning to others considering that option -
it's difficult to use and, in fact, irreprably broken if you want to
do something (not all that) complicated. I'm not sure what the right
answer is here (though it sounds like it's going to be pretty orrible
however you do it), but I'd be inclined to avoid quotes if at all possible.
Peter's right that semicolons need escaping as do quotes, but at
least semicolons are not themselves quoting constructs. If quotes form
part of the new invented syntax it becomes difficult to use them
to protect that syntax from interpretation by the shell, so you have
one less weapon in your quoting armoury.
Mark
--
Mark Taylor Astronomical Programmer Physics, Bristol University, UK
[log in to unmask] +44-117-928-8776 http://www.star.bris.ac.uk/~mbt/
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