My personal view is that syntax errors should be caught before the
script is put to work. I am not willing to equal this particular
situation with avarage execution of command shell scripts.
These scripts are about to execute in batch mode as part of a
delivery process.
An good example is aliases as used by sendmail. The aliases file
have to be processed before being put into the message dispatch
process. Syntax errors are reported to the operator. The alias
lookup mechanism in sendmail does not have to deal with
syntactical errors.
Why not apply a similar requirement on filtering?
in the context that you have described, I would agree. however,
in other contexts, I can see how it would be a hinderance rather
than a help.
regards,
Jack
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Jack De Winter - Wildbear Consulting, Inc.
(519) 884-4498 http://www.wildbear.on.ca/jacks/