4 ms·

Same, I've built toy shells [0] that used xml, s-expressions and ascii delimited text [1]. The last was closest to what unix pipes should be like. Of course it

Same, I've built toy shells [0] that used xml, s-expressions and ascii delimited text [1]. The last was closest to what unix pipes should be like. Of course it breaks ALL posix tools, but it felt like a shell that finally works as you'd expect it to work. [0] Really just input + exec + pipes. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delimiter#ASCII_delimited_text https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delimiter#ASCII_delimited_text

JdeBP 6y ago
Here's one tool that it does not break. (-: * http://jdebp.uk./Softwares/nosh/guide/commands/console-flat-table-viewer.xml http://jdebp.uk./Softwares/nosh/guide/commands/console-flat-...
hnlmorg 6y ago
As long as you re-serialise that data when piping to coreutils (etc) you shouldn't have an issue. This is what my shell (https://github.com/lmorg/murex https://github.com/lmorg/murex) does. It defaults to using JSON as a serialisation format (that's how arrays, maps, etc are stored, how spaces are escaped, etc) but it can re-serialise that data when piping into executables which aren't JSON aware. Other serialisation formats are also supported such as YAML, CSV and S-Expressions too. I had also considered adding support for ASCII records but it's not a use case I personally run into (unlike JSON, YAML, CSV, etc) so haven't written a marshaller to support it yet.
- buzzkillington 6y ago
  Ascii records have worked better than json, xml, s-expressions (better as in provide the same bang for a lot less buck) in every case I've used them for. I have no idea why I am the only person I know who uses them regularly.
  - hnlmorg 6y ago
    ASCII records have their own limitations though: - They can be as easily edited by hand like other serialisation formats which use printable characters as their deliminators - It's not clearly defined how you'd use them for non-tabulated data (such as JSON, XML, S-Expressions) - There isn't any standard for escaping control characters - They're harder to differentiate between unserialised binary formats - They can't be used as a primitive like JSON is to Javascript and S-Expressions is to Lisp. And if we're both honest, reducing the serialisation overhead doesn't gain you anything when working in the command line. It's a hard enough sell getting websites to support BSON and at least there, there is a tangible benefit of scale. Not that I'm dismissing ASCII records, they would have been better than the whitespace mess we currently have in POSIX shells. However I don't agree ASCII records are better that current JSON nor S-Expressions.

JdeBP 6y ago

Here's one tool that it does not break. (-: * http://jdebp.uk./Softwares/nosh/guide/commands/console-flat-table-viewer.xml http://jdebp.uk./Softwares/nosh/guide/commands/console-flat-...

hnlmorg 6y ago

As long as you re-serialise that data when piping to coreutils (etc) you shouldn't have an issue. This is what my shell (https://github.com/lmorg/murex https://github.com/lmorg/murex) does. It defaults to using JSON as a serialisation format (that's how arrays, maps, etc are stored, how spaces are escaped, etc) but it can re-serialise that data when piping into executables which aren't JSON aware. Other serialisation formats are also supported such as YAML, CSV and S-Expressions too. I had also considered adding support for ASCII records but it's not a use case I personally run into (unlike JSON, YAML, CSV, etc) so haven't written a marshaller to support it yet.

buzzkillington 6y ago
Ascii records have worked better than json, xml, s-expressions (better as in provide the same bang for a lot less buck) in every case I've used them for. I have no idea why I am the only person I know who uses them regularly.
- hnlmorg 6y ago
  ASCII records have their own limitations though: - They can be as easily edited by hand like other serialisation formats which use printable characters as their deliminators - It's not clearly defined how you'd use them for non-tabulated data (such as JSON, XML, S-Expressions) - There isn't any standard for escaping control characters - They're harder to differentiate between unserialised binary formats - They can't be used as a primitive like JSON is to Javascript and S-Expressions is to Lisp. And if we're both honest, reducing the serialisation overhead doesn't gain you anything when working in the command line. It's a hard enough sell getting websites to support BSON and at least there, there is a tangible benefit of scale. Not that I'm dismissing ASCII records, they would have been better than the whitespace mess we currently have in POSIX shells. However I don't agree ASCII records are better that current JSON nor S-Expressions.