(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

Bashdiff is a patch for the bash 3.x series (the faster version) that adds a whole dynamically loadable toolbox to the shell, and is deserving of a new maintainer (my plate is already full). Its website is archived here.

Take a look at the following summary and consider the things it could replace.

Summary

BashDiff is a patch against Bash-3.0 shell, incorporating many useful features from Awk, Python, Zsh, Ksh, and others. It implements in the main core

• new brace expansion {a..b} --- integer/letter generation, positional parameters and array expansion
  new parameter expansion ${var|...} --- content filtering, list comprehension (like Python), regex/string splitting and joining, Python-like string methods, emulation of associative array lookup, etc.
  extended case statement --- regex, continuation, then/else sections
  extended for/while/until loops --- then/else sections, multiple for-loop variables
  try-block with string exception (like Python)
  new <<+ here-document --- relative indentation
  new <<<< here-file

and as dynamically loadable builtins

• extended read/echo builtins --- DOS lines, CSV format, and Awk emulation
  sscanf(3), <string.h> and <ctype.h> wrappers, ASCII/string conversion, and binary number conversion.
  new raise builtin for try-block
  array cut/splicing, array filter/map/zip/unzip (like Python)
  HTML template engine (like PHP, JSP, ASP)
  GDBM, SQLite, PostgreSQL, and MySQL database interface
  Expat XML parser interface
  stack/queue operations on arrays and positional parameters
  x-y character plot
  Libwebserver (embedded web server) interface
  GTK+2 interface for simple GUI dialog or layout
  RPN calculator (like HP calculator)
  creditcard checksum, masking, track data extraction
  support for Protobase/Multi/Monetra API file, cent/dollar conversion

So many views and no responses. Hi Technosaurus, I'm not much of a programmer (though I love using bash) so maybe you can explain what a maintainer does? I'm somewhat willing to help but I'm afraid that I lack the technical expertise to really commit.


Respectfully,

Slavvo67

Mostly you just use it, in the process identify and try to resolve issues you come across and maintain patches sent by others. Maybe try to contact the initial developer to get the formal OK to put up a repository on github (I would do it as a fork of the bash-3.2 series with the patches applied)