rewriting config_*, xmalloc_fget*

Laurent Bercot ska-dietlibc at skarnet.org
Thu Jun 16 20:37:09 UTC 2011


> There's no point in C programs reading the output of find -print0.
> It's trivial to call nftw yourself.

 Unless said C programs are modular utilities. Like xargs.

 For instance,
  http://www.skarnet.org/software/execline/forbacktick.html
 would have been unnecessarily difficult to write if it had had to
understand shell quoting.


> It's also trivial with the shell
> to transform shell-quoted form to null-delimited form:
> 
> eval "printf '%s\0' $quoted"

 Yes - if, again, you have access to a shell and a printf. Why
require a printf formatting pass and a shell parsing pass when
you can simply pipe the data to the next filter ? KISS please.

 The shell is a hammer, but all data isn't nail-shaped. Don't
make the mistake of applying your favorite tool even when it's
not the best-suited for the job.

-- 
 Laurent


More information about the busybox mailing list