Re: [PATCH] Supplant the "while case ... break ;; esac" idiom

From: David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>
Date: Sep 24, 2007, 11:39 UTC
Message-ID: <861wcouwbf.fsf@lola.quinscape.zz>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.64.0709241128460.28395@racer.site>

Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de> writes:

> The reason we used "case" is that this has always been a builtin
> (has to be, because it changes workflow).
>
> Therefore I am somewhat uneasy that the patch went in so easily,

It didn't yet.

> especially given a message that flies in the face of our endeavours
> to make git less dependent on any given shell (as long as it is not
> broken to begin with).

"test" is not actually a shell dependency since it is available as an external when not available as builtin. And if you really want to prefer "case" over "test" because the latter is not a built-in in a small number of shells, then it should be done consistently everywhere and not just in code I touch.

-- 
David Kastrup