Re: [bug-gawk] in-place edit request

[Andrew J. Schorr]

On Mon, Dec 31, 2012 at 09:03:14AM -0600, Ed Morton wrote:
> I understand from this email exchange that -i is being used by gawk
> for something else (though I don't see it mentioned at
> http://www.gnu.org/software/gawk/manual/gawk.html#Options so I'm not
> sure what) so I assume that -i , unfortunately, is off the table (is
> it?) but is it really not possible to use "-<capital-i>" or some
> other single character so we can have:
> 
>     sed -i 'script' file
>     perl -i 'script' file
>     ruby -i 'script' file
>     awk -I 'script' file
> 
> Right now the chosen implementation is driving the interface.
> Couldn't we retain that implementation but also provide the
> interface the users would expect even if it means a little more code
> internally to map "-I" to the "-i inplace" functionality?

If we use an gawk command-line option, then we need to incorporate
the functionality inside gawk instead of implementing it as an
extension.

> >There is nothing stopping anyone from writing a one line wrapper:
> >
> >     $ cat aip       # Awk In Place
> >     #! /bin/sh
> >     exec gawk -i inplace "$@"

Or one could name this script "gawki" if you'd like.  Or gawk-i.

Is it really worth bringing this feature into the main binary for the
sake of having a space between "gawk" and "-i"?

Regards,
Andy