From: Johannes Schindelin Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2007 10:33:00 GMT Subject: Re: [PATCH] Supplant the "while case ... break ;; esac" idiom Message-ID: In-Reply-To: <20070924080436.GB9112@artemis.corp> Hi, On Mon, 24 Sep 2007, Pierre Habouzit wrote: > On Mon, Sep 24, 2007 at 08:01:34AM +0000, Pierre Habouzit wrote: > > On Mon, Sep 24, 2007 at 07:57:31AM +0000, David Kastrup wrote: > > > "David Symonds" writes: > > > > > > > On 24/09/2007, David Kastrup wrote: > > > >> Mike Hommey writes: > > > >> > > > >> > On Sun, Sep 23, 2007 at 10:42:08PM +0200, David Kastrup wrote: > > > >> >> -while case $# in 0) break ;; esac > > > >> >> +while test $# != 0 > > > >> > > > > >> > Wouldn't -ne be better ? > > > >> > > > >> Why? > > > > > > > > Because -ne does a numeric comparison, != does a string comparison, > > > > and it's a numeric comparison happening, semantically speaking. > > > > > > I don't see the point in converting $# and 0 into numbers before > > > comparing them. "!=" is quite more readable, and the old code also > > > compared the strings. > > > > Fwiw $# already is a number. Hence test $# -ne 0 is definitely a > > better test. > > > > $# != 0 would yield sth like (strcmp(sprintf("%d", argc), "0")) > > $# -ne 0 would yield sth like (argc != atoi("0")). > > Of course this holds only for shell where test/[ is a builtin, which > is the at least the case for zsh, bash, and dash (but not posh). 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, 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). Ciao, Dscho