On Sat, 10 Oct 2009 04:53:56 +1100, Grant wrote:

... 'echo -n' is frowned upon, ...

What??? Since when?

Since I learned printf!

I see ...

But here we're about Slackware and slack's default shell is bash.

Um .... yeah, ok, your point ...

Isn't this stuff ever going to be standardised over the various shell?

Sure, as soon as no one decides they can build a better wheel ...
(something about playing hockey in Hell also comes to mind, I must admit
...)

Lisp is somewhat
comprehensible, in a bizarre twisted sorta way.

On Thu, 15 Oct 2009 19:40:50 +1100, Grant wrote:

What? 'cos I didn't write a module? A module doesn't make the code
more readable.

No, but proper variable names might have gone a long way towards making
the example you posted more readable.

Just because Perl allows you to be lazy doesn't mean you should be, and
just because you can post a barely readable Perl snippet doesn't mean
that Perl forces that style on the programmer.

On Wed, 14 Oct 2009 23:14:56 -0700, Keith Keller <kkeller-usenet at (no spam) wombat.san-francisco.ca.us> wrote:

...
If this subroutine is doing what I think (trying to map an IP address to
a country code?), you'd probably be better off using a module. Thus
Sylvain's point is still valid--just because you can write unreadable
Perl doesn't mean you have to. :)

What? 'cos I didn't write a module?

A module doesn't make the code more readable.

PROCEDURE DIVISION.
*
100-MAIN.
PERFORM 200-START-SYSTEM.
DISPLAY ' ' LINE 1 COLUMN 1 ERASE SCREEN
PERFORM 300-DISPLAY-WORLD.
PERFORM UNTIL ALL-DONE
MOVE 'X' TO KEY-PRESS
ACCEPT KEY-PRESS
BOLD PROTECTED AUTOTERMINATE DEFAULT IS CURRENT VALUE
IF FUNCTION UPPER-CASE ( KEY-PRESS ) = 'Q'
SET ALL-DONE TO TRUE
ELSE
PERFORM 400-KICK-WORLD
PERFORM 300-DISPLAY-WORLD
END-IF
END-PERFORM
STOP RUN.
*

Mike Jones <Not at (no spam) arizona.bay> wrote:


More and more I'm getting the idea that I need to re-train my brain
instead of leaping about trying all kinds of things and making life more
complex for no good reason. Chances are, I'll end up back at bash
scripting for the level of stuff I typically do.

I think its probably time to swot up on GAWK to by the looks of things.

Cheers!

One of the advantages of using bash is that if you also use it as your
shell, you can easily try out commands at the prompt. This makes
testing unfamiliar constructs nice and easy.

Gawk is fairly easy to learn if you already know C.

On Fri, 16 Oct 2009 20:10:31 +0000 (UTC), Jerry Peters <jerry at (no spam) example.invalid> wrote:

Mike Jones <Not at (no spam) arizona.bay> wrote:


More and more I'm getting the idea that I need to re-train my brain
instead of leaping about trying all kinds of things and making life more
complex for no good reason. Chances are, I'll end up back at bash
scripting for the level of stuff I typically do.

I think its probably time to swot up on GAWK to by the looks of things.

Cheers!

One of the advantages of using bash is that if you also use it as your
shell, you can easily try out commands at the prompt. This makes
testing unfamiliar constructs nice and easy.

Yes, but is that not true for any shell? Not as if one would try to
run a bash script under zsh? 'spose you could, seems weird to me

Gawk is fairly easy to learn if you already know C.

Sometimes, sure awk's procedural constructs (normal if-then-else
programming with looping) are like C, but then there's the automatic
variables and pattern - action constructs that are not like C.

So there's a certain amount of unlearning too. I found it difficult
to switch to the awk pattern-action way of thinking for a complex
program. In a large awk program I wrote some years ago:

function chart_hits_per_port( hits, i, j, k, kk, max, o, pf, xp)
{
if (!total) return

# find top n hits for barchart, change back to port order
for (i = sort_hits_port_len; i > sort_hits_port_len - chartlen; i--) {
if (!i) break
split(sort_hits_port[i], k, ":")

# promote ICMPs to list top by giving tcp/udp lead-zeroes
if (k[2] !~ /ICMP/) {
split(k[2], kk, "/")
k[2] = sprintf("%07d/%s", kk[1], kk[2])
}
xp[i] = sprintf("%11s:%6d", k[2], k[1])
}
delete sort_hits_port # chart_hits_per_port
...

Yes, sorta looks like C. But programs like this become more like a
prototype to get the logic going?

Back to simple stuff, example of mixing gawk and shell to produce a
result:

grant at (no spam) deltree:~$ ccfind 1234567890
73.150.2.210 US:United States

grant at (no spam) deltree:~$ cat $(which ccfind)
#!/bin/bash
#
# ccfind 2006-03-05, last edit 2008-08-15
#
# returns '<query> cc:country name' for IP address input queries,
# using the ip2cn-server daemon.
#
# Copyright (C) 2006-2008 Grant Coady <http://bugsplatter.id.au> GPLv2
#
# 2008-08-13
# convert to ip2cn-server operation, no more access locking!
#

# check got query
[ -z "$1" ] && echo "
ccfind -- lookup country code and name for IP address
usage $0 aa.bb.cc.dd
" && exit

# get server listen port
port=$(gawk '/^inetport/ {print $2}' /etc/ip2cn-server.conf)

# make query, may be dotquad or numeric (decimal) IP address
echo "$ at (no spam) " | gawk -v port=$port '
BEGIN { service = "/inet/tcp/0/localhost/" port }
$1 == "0" { $1 = "0." }
{ print |& service; service |& getline; print }' 2>/dev/null

# end

When using awk's pattern action constructs, it doesn't much look
like C. Also, that one liner above retrieving port number from
a .conf file is example of awk winning hands down over sed + cut
for clarity of purpose.

Grant.

On Fri, 16 Oct 2009 20:10:31 +0000 (UTC), Jerry Peters <jerry at (no spam) example.invalid> wrote:
Mike Jones <Not at (no spam) arizona.bay> wrote:
One of the advantages of using bash is that if you also use it as your
shell, you can easily try out commands at the prompt. This makes
testing unfamiliar constructs nice and easy.

Yes, but is that not true for any shell? Not as if one would try to
run a bash script under zsh? 'spose you could, seems weird to me :)

Gawk is fairly easy to learn if you already know C.

On Sun, 18 Oct 2009 11:14:31 GMT, Mike Jones <Not at (no spam) Arizona.Bay> wrote:

...
Next up, how to fsck a brain. %|

Start with three fingers Vodka, repeat until . . .

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 22:26:07 +1100, Grant did cat :

On Sun, 18 Oct 2009 11:14:31 GMT, Mike Jones <Not at (no spam) Arizona.Bay> wrote:

...
Next up, how to fsck a brain. %|

Start with three fingers Vodka, repeat until . . .

Beware, you can't do that on a journalized brain!