ken wrote:
A while back, there was a discussion about
relative message numbers. For example,
http://lists.nongnu.org/archive/html/nmh-workers/2012-10/msg00048.html.
But I don't believe there was a resolution. Was there?
If foobar is a message sequence then something like foobar+3, for the
third message of foobar, would make my life a bit easier.
I think Paul Fox accurately summed up the consensus view on that
thread:
but i admit: i've thought about this quite a bit in the past, and
have never come up with syntax that was backward compatible,
meaningful, and enough faster to type than the digits themselves to be
useful.
I don't think the situation has changed. Right now anything with a
"-" in it counts as a range, so there's that to think about.
so, i was using 'dc' the other day (is there anything else?), and for
the first time in a while, i had to enter a negative number. HP
solved this problem on their calculators with a "CHS" (change sign")
button, but the dc authors opted to require the use of the '_' to
introduce a negative number.
in the face of that long-established and well-recognized precedent :-),
how would people feel about this change:
The specification “name+n” designates a single message, namely the
`n'th message after `name' (or the last message, if not enough messages
exist). One might expect the `n'th message prior to `name' to be spec‐
ified by “name-n”, but that syntax denotes a range. Therefore, the
character `_' is used instead: “name_n” designates the `n'th message
before `name' (or the first message if not enough messages exist).
i've implemented the above, to see how it "feels" (which is "okay").
i can make the corresponding changes for "foobar+3" and "foobar_2" if
folks think it's reasonable.
paul
----------------------
paul fox, pgf(_at_)foxharp(_dot_)boston(_dot_)ma(_dot_)us (arlington, ma,
where it's 50.2 degrees)
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