On 24/11/2024 13.24, Ulrich Müller wrote:
> This implements a pipestatus command, as discussed in bug 566342 [1]
> and on IRC.
> 
> Subject to approval by the council, the command would be added in
> EAPI 9. Its definition in the Package Manager Specification would be
> along the lines of:
> 
> ╓────
> ║ Tests the shell's pipe status array, i.e. the exit status of the
> ║ command(s) in the most recently executed foreground pipeline.
> ║ Returns shell true (0) if all elements are zero, or the last
> ║ non-zero element otherwise. If called with -v as the first argument,
> ║ also outputs the pipe status array as a space-separated list.
> ╙────

Thanks again for putting effort into this ulm.

When this was discussed in #-qa one initial version of pipestatus() had 
support for specifying non-zero exit statues as success indication for 
certain commands in the pipe. The prime example being 'grep' returning 1 
if no input matched.

One proposed version had support for this, but it was removed in later 
version and the discussion in #-qa shifted towards how the value of 
PIPESTATUS can be preserved to be included in a potential error message.

I agree that we should drop 'assert' and that dropping it requires a 
sensible named alternative. And the proposed version of pipestatus() is 
a functional equivalent alternative.

However, I am not sure why the proposed pipestatus() does no longer 
include support for specifying non-zero exit statuses as success indication.

I looked forward to use pipestatus() in texlive-modules.eclass [1], but 
since the pipe includes a 'grep', which is not uncommon, I can not use 
what is currently proposed.

It seems strange to me to go this far, but then drop the ball on the 
last meter.

Could we please consider re-adding support for this?

- Flow



1: 
https://github.com/gentoo/gentoo/blob/11b21e623fcff8948cbbd33854ffdb2a51b2840b/eclass/texlive-module.eclass#L540-L549