Re: [bug-gnulib] gnulib-tool: don't ever forget to set $dry again

[Ralf Wildenhues]

Hi Bruno,

* Bruno Haible wrote on Wed, Sep 14, 2005 at 10:53:53PM CEST:
> Ralf Wildenhues wrote:
> > This patch makes $dry_run obsolete in favor of using $dry only.  This
> > way, the repeated and error-prone setting of the latter is eliminated.
> 
> Thanks for the patch. I plan to fix this problem, alongside with the
> need for different echo messages in the real case vs. dry-run case
> ("Copying some/file" in the real case vs. "Copy some/file" in the
> dry-run case), by using a variable $dry whose value is either ':' or 'false'.
> So that one case write
>    $dry && echo something
> but also
>    if $dry; then dosomething; fi

Hmm.  This way forces you to write
  if $dry; then
    echo do something
  else
    do something
  fi

in many current usage cases or use yet another variable again, whereas
with my patch you can just do
  $dry do something

but still can do
  test -n "$dry" && dosometing_which_is_not_echoed

or even
  test "$dry" && ...

and the semantics should still be rather obvious to the reader.

Cheers,
Ralf