[prog] Shell question...

[Riccarda Cassini]

On Sat, Dec 11, 2004 at 10:19:08AM +1100, John Clarke wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 10, 2004 at 06:28:13 +0100, Riccarda Cassini wrote:
> 
> > I first checked whether I do have backup copies of the scripts...
> > I'm not the ubergeek I'd like to be. Not yet ;-) 
> 
> Keeping backups doesn't mean you're not an ubergeek.

Just a little background on what I was thinking of when saying this:

In German we have this fashion to use words like the following when
we're calling each other names (though usually meant in an ironical,
friendly way):

Warmduscher      = someone who prefers warm water when taking a shower
                   (IOW, someone who's not enough of a tough guy to
                   take cold water)

Schattenparker   = similarly, someone who prefers a parking spot in
                   the shadow (in summer)
...

I think it originally started with Warmduscher, but lots of other more
or less funny words have been coined in the meantime, all revolving
around being a wimp or being uncool...[*]
In the IT sector, people have apparently come up with

"perl -ibak"-er  = someone who prefers to create backups when doing
                   in-place edits on a bunch of files  (meaning you
                   do not have trust in yourself, and are not enough
                   of a guru to just get it right the first time)

(at least that's what my friend Almut called me, last time she felt
like teasing me...)


> >   eval `echo bl\\\\\\\\\"a | ./read_vars.sh FOO`
> 
> You have way too much time on your hands :-)

Heh, I'd rather call it applied ISO 9000 / QA testing ;-)

> 
> You can remove eight of those backslashes, if you change this line in
> read_vars.sh:
> 
>     echo "$1=\"$VALUE\""
> 
> to this:
> 
>     echo "$1='$VALUE'"

Then, what about bl'a ?  ;-)

This may seem like just being silly.  Well, it is.  However, there's a
kernel of truth in it...  Is there an (easy) way to make this approach
robust against any kind of special characters, like " ' $ \ etc.?
Probably not all that relevant in my case, but you know, in general,
when it doesn't cost much, it's always better to do things the right
way *before* you have a raging client on the phone...

Riccarda


[*] for an extensive list see
    http://www.spruecheportal.de/warmduscher.php  or
    http://www.harald-michel.de/warmduscher.html