Re: my recent request for help

[Harald Hanche-Olsen <hanche@math.ntnu.no>]

+ fischer <inode@freenet.de>:

| thanx guys, for all the help.
| 
| i got exactly zero messages on a fairly simple problem 7^/

Hey, the list has obviously been out of commision for several days.
How about a little patience?

| have no fear, because i got the solution.

OK, glad you found it on your own.

| when reading several values using %read, they will be returned in
| one simple flat value.  to index a list you would rather want
| several distinguishable values, and it happens like this:
| 
| i = <=%read; i = `{echo $i}
| echo $list($i)
| 
| ...then will work as expected.

Yes, but using echo in backquotes to split a string is the sh way.
The es way would be

i = <={%split $^ifs <=%read}

BTW, if like me you have set PAGER='less -s' then running $PAGER from
es will not work; you will have to run <={%split $^ifs $PAGER}
instead.

es's way of never gratuitously splitting single arguments containing
spaces makes for fewer surprises, albeit at the cost of a little extra
work once in a while.

| am i the only person in the biz who uses es(local) as a login shell
| and, moreover, would be bold enough to post to this mailing list?

In what biz?  I sure use es as a login shell, but I may be in the
wrong biz.  8-)

- Harald