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Mike Frysinger wrote: |
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> relying on an external program |
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The point is that external programs can have all sorts of undesired |
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side effects. For instance, if an directory is not readable (or |
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readable but not executable or is on $FILESYSTEM with who-knows-what |
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permissions or accessability problems) it can cause unexpected |
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errors which otherwise are treated by "standard" shell behavior: |
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*This* is why the ls is hackish here, not the readability. |
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About the readability, one can always have different opinions, |
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but your attack is inappropriate: |
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> to get a single line of readable code is better than |
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> multiple lines of code that attempt to do the same thing. |
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First, my suggestions are not "multiple lines" but only |
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exactly *two* lines (i.e. only one additional line): |
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Please compare |
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set -- "${ROOT}"/etc/openvpn/*/local.conf |
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if test -e "${1}" |
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with the "single line of readable code" which contains not less code, |
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but is only squashed into one line: |
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if [[ -e $(ls -1 -- "${ROOT}"/etc/openvpn/*/local.conf) ]] |
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Is this really so much more readable? |
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(The "--" can be omitted in both code pieces iff portage has a test |
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that ROOT does not start with "-"). |
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And if you really want only readability, you should like even much |
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more my second suggestion which could also be squashed as two lines: |
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Exists() { test -e "${1}"; } |
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if Exists "${ROOT}"/etc/openvpn/*/local.conf |
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I would say this is *way* more readable than the complex 1-liner. |
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Of course, opinions may differ, but I think an unfounded attack as |
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> your further examples here are even worse on many levels. |
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is not appropriate here. |
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Regards |
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Martin |
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