Re: Command Languages Versus Programming Languages

Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:

On Sun, 07 Apr 2024 00:01:43 +0000, Javier wrote:
>

The downside is the loss of performance because of disk access for
trivial things like 'nfiles=$(ls | wc -l)'.

>
Well, you could save one process creation by writing
“nfiles=$(echo * | wc -l)” instead. But that would still not be strictly
correct.

If that saves a process, it's because echo is builtin.  But it will set
$nfiles to 1 (unless you happen to have files with newlines in their
names).  Both skip hidden files, which may or may not be what you want.

[...]

--
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com
Working, but not speaking, for Medtronic
void Void(void) { Void(); } /* The recursive call of the void */