Here is another feature request. In C struct, eg. struct { char date[7], dev[16], ver[32], rev[10], ... } you just access variables, and compiler will do the offsetting. I would like something like that, where I don't have to do the bookkeeping.
Right now, I am doing set -- ...break into arguments... and access $1, $2, ..., ${@:20:32}, ... Or, read -a tokens and acess tokens[0], tokens[1], ... This is fine for few arguments, but when it goes to few hundreds, it's very easy to make mistakes and very difficult to catch it. So, how about C-like struct template to put your arguments into? You can build the template like template=( date 7 dev 16 ver 32 rev 10 ... ) and it will put the first 7 arguments into array "date", next 16 arguments into array "dev", next 32 arguments into array "ver", next 10 arguments into array "rev", ... Then, I just use variable "rev" and that would be equivalent to ${@:55:10}. Where it would useful? - parsing real-life CSV files - parsing UDP packets, for prototyping. - parsing anything that has fixed width format. - ... -- William Park <opengeome...@yahoo.ca>