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Suggestion for ZSH, who do I send it to?



  So, I have a few suggestions. Are you open to using GNU libraries in ZSH?  If so, I was thinking how ZSH is so powerful (and easy to use), that it can actually handle all types of data -- like all 256 characters of ASCII.  So with multibyte turned off that means binary, even if its a little slow.  But here is the problem with dealing with binary, or unusual characters through ZSH, every operation requires using several ZSH builtin commands / variable expansions.  This makes a process that converts data into something more usable on the input or the output very CPU heavy and inefficient.  My suggestion is to add a few options to the sysread and syswrite builtins that come stock with ZSH in the system module:
  • -d : (sysread) to make the variable created an integer type containing the numerical value corresponding to the raw byte value, for -s 1; and for -s 2+ (reading more than a single byte), make it an array with each indice containing a string of decimal digit(s), whose numerical value is generated the same way, representing the value for each byte.
  • -h : (sysread) to make a string value that is two characters per input byte, representing the value of the byte in hexadecimal (padded with 0 if less than 16, and obviously as with above, a null would equal 00).  This would make Zsh able to function for whatever given needs (boot environments, less prevalent unix-like systems) without having to supply an xxd program, and it would be much more efficient processing when any math is involved in the script.
--
Micah micah@xxxxxxxxxxxx
AskMicah.Net, Problem Solving Agency


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