Hierarchical data (was: Light weight support for JSON)

[Chris Dunlop]

On Wed, Aug 31, 2022 at 11:11:26AM -0400, Chet Ramey wrote:
> On 8/29/22 2:03 PM, tetsujin@scope-eye.net wrote:
> > It would also help greatly if the shell could internally handle 
> > hierarchical data in variables.
>
> That's a fundamental change. There would have to be a better reason to 
> make it than handling JSON.

I've only a little interest in handling JSON natively in bash (jq usually 
gets me there), but I have a strong interest in handling hierarchical data 
(h-data) in bash.

I admit I've only had a few cases where I've been jumping through hoops to 
manage h-data in bash, but that's because, once it's clear h-data is a 
natural way to manage an issue, I would normally handle the problem in 
perl rather than trying to force clunky constructs into a bash script. In 
perl I use h-data all the time. I'm sure if h-data were available in bash 
I'd be using it all the time there as well.

Chris