Re: [dev] print utility

From: Sam Watkins <sam_AT_nipl.net>
Date: Tue, 2 Apr 2013 15:36:27 +1100

I reckon by far the most common thing people do with sed is to replace
one (sort of) string with another. But even this "core sed business"
is ridiculous with sed.

e.g. A=/usr/bin B=/bin sed 's/$A/$B/' <in >out # won't work

Changing delimiters doesn't help for the general case. I would have to
escape any input string before sed can handle it, which is more difficult
than writing a better substitute process.

sed is over-complex and so it's stupid even at its simplest core business.

I would like rather:

        sub "$A" "$B" <in >out

etc. More binaries perhaps, but at least they are sane.

Sam
Received on Tue Apr 02 2013 - 06:36:27 CEST