Re: RFE: Please allow unicode ID chars in identifiers

[dualbus]

On Thu, Jun 01, 2017 at 10:16:30PM -0700, L A Walsh wrote:
> > Should UTF-8 be assumed?
> You realize bash already allows UTF-8 input?

Of course. Both Bash and Readline are able to process multibyte
character input. That's not the same as parsing multibyte sequences in
*code*. See Python's Enhancement Proposal on the matter to get a glimpse
of some of the challenges of implementing Unicode identifiers:
https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-3131/

[...]

> I don't suppose we wanted something more expressive or symbolic?
> 
> Couldn't we have gotten by with the original Bourne shell?  Why develop
> bash?  What was the actual need?

Because the Bourne shell was not free software. And this has nothing to
do at all with your RFE.

> How do you emphasize a var, say in italic or bold?

I don't. It's source code. I don't write source code in Spanish, nor do
I don't underline, emphasize, strike, bold, italic, ...

> Anyway, bash already has some unicode parsing in it because
> it accepts UTF-8.  So it wouldn't have to be the complete
> rewrite you make it.

Then it shouldn't be hard for you to craft a small patch and send it to
the list so that we can review it. Don't put words on my mouth. I said
that it will increase the complexity of the parser, and will most likely
introduce a whole new class of parsing bugs. If you want to give it a
try, be my guest. But don't ask for stuff without considering the cost
of what you're requesting, or if you're not willing to make part of the
contribution yourself.


Anyways. Unless I see an actual patch, this will be my last response to
this thread.

-- 
Eduardo Bustamante
https://dualbus.me/