Re: es decompression hack

[haahr@mv.us.adobe.com (Paul Haahr)]

Scott writes
> Speaking of hacks, and thinking about the thread on the rc list about
> devfd/fifos/tmpfiles, it might be nice to have a syntax for doing more
> than one of them, ala zsh.  (Maybe this should have gone to the rc list.)

es supports two of the forms, /dev/fd and files in /tmp.  the /dev/fd
version is coded in c in the interpreter, though it's not clear to me
that it has to be.  the files in /tmp version is written in es and loaded
(in initial.es) if the builtin version is not around.  a fifo version
could be written along the lines of the /tmp one in initial.es, but
i so strongly believe that fifos (as implemented on all systems i've
seen) have the wrong semantics that i'm not going to do it.  (for the
record, it was me who was urging Byron to remove the fifo version from rc.)

but, hey, this is es.  if you really want fifos, write new versions of
the functions %readfrom and %writeto and put them in your .esrc, and
use fifos to your heart's delight.  i think files in /tmp are a much
better and more useful version, but that's just my opinion.

or maybe i misunderstood the question.  do you really want all three
options in the same shell, triggered by different syntax?  (i hope not.)

paul