Dear "David Collier",
In message <memo.20091026103604.2092e@postmaster+dexdyne.com.cix.co.uk> you wrote:
I did not only describe it, I tested it. I just "tricked" a bit. You asked to extract the last two digits, and I used "% 100" to do this. Note that this works correctly in any number base - may it be 10 or 16 or whatever :-)
Hey, that was clever, wasn't it? :-)
yeah it was - but of course I really wanted the next 2 digits as well.... I'm hoping to make more than 100 units really! pardon me for over-simplifying my question.
Then do the same with "% 10000" and "/ 100" ?
I wonder if it would be useful/helpful to allow the user to optionally over-ride the number base for reading and separately for writing by setexpr.
I don't see a need for it; certainly not here.
That would extend it's usefulness without requiring an extra command or breaking any existing code
No extra command is needed here.
setenv setexpr_in 10 setenv setexpr_out 16
If I wrote a patch would you look favourably on it?
I don't think so. If we did something like that, it should be generic and not restricted to one command. And it would break a LOT of existing scripts. And it is not needed at all, at least not for the use case you have in mind here. [If anything is worth implementing at all, then maybe the regexp handling present in standard expr command.]
Best regards,
Wolfgang Denk