Re: [RFC] {print,}env -0

[Bauke Jan Douma]

Jim Meyering wrote on 10/26/2009 08:43 PM:
> Pádraig Brady wrote:
>
> > Eric Blake wrote:
> > > Since environment variables may contain newlines, but env and printenv
> > > currently separate output entries via newline, we have a case of ambiguous
> > > output.  For example, "env | sed -n '/^a.*=/ s,=.*,,p'" does not necessarily
> > > tell you the set of environment variables beginning with "a", because I could
> > > have done "export b=$'\na=c'".  What do list readers think of the idea of
> > > adding:
> > >
> > > env -0/--null
> > > printenv -0/--null
> > >
> > > as a means of unambiguously representing the current contents of the
> > > environment with NUL terminators instead of newlines?
> > It's consistent and makes sense.
> > I've not needed it myself (I think :)),
> > but I would say it's worth adding.
>
> I'm on the fence, partly because you can simulate printenv -0 with this:
>
>     perl -e 'print map {"$_=$ENV{$_}\0"} keys %ENV'
>
> You can simulate env -0 the same way.
> Certainly, env -0 and printenv -0 are easier to type and use.
> Not strongly for or against.

... ah, Jim, but this is /core/utils no?

Wouldn't you agree therefore that historically as well
as OS-constitutionally coreutils are more fundamental
than perl? And, perhaps, therefore --at least in this
case-- it has no business of referring to a youngster
like perl?   ;-)

In short, personally, my hand's up for the proposition,
given the example.

bjd