Comment by rgrau

5 hours ago

for multiline pipes, it's WAY better to format like

    foo   |
      bar |
      baz

You don't have to use backquotes, AND, it allows you to comment line by line, because there's no backslash messing with the parser.

I also use a last `|\ncat` so you can delete any line and you don't have to worry about the last line being a bit different than the rest

I created a list of similar tricks in https://github.com/kidd/scripting-field-guide in case anyone wants to take a look

2 comments

rgrau

mzs 3 hours ago

You'll probably dislike this too:

  $ {
  >     echo foo \
  >     && echo bar \
  >     || echo baz ;
  > }
  foo
  bar
  <^P><^A>$<^F>IFS
  ${IFS#   echo foo   && echo bar   || echo baz ; }
  $ _

There's good and bad to both approaches. I like how I can use () and {} to bracket things and otherwise every line that end in \ is continued. I line-up on the left with the operator, you with indentation. When you use a # style comment, you have to look up and back and forward to see what the operator is you are continuing over to the next line:

  $ foo |
    bar | # ?Do? *the* $bar$ && [do] {it!}
    baz

Which only takes an extra neuron or so, but then history...

  <^P>
  $ foo |   bar | # ?Do? *the* $bar$ && [do] {it!}
  baz

rgrau 3 hours ago

aha! I see what you mean, it's indeed a nice option, yep.
Using brackets like this is something I never thought of, and it's probably why it's hard for me to process it, but I can see it provides nice annotation capabilities, and it's a more self-contained style.
Thx for sharing!