Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!lvc
From: lvc@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Lawrence V. Cipriani)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: what's the use of "{ list }" in /bin/sh?
Summary: while can contain compound commands in test
Message-ID: <17103@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu>
Date: 7 Jul 88 00:34:35 GMT
References: <23590@teknowledge-vaxc.ARPA> <3305@palo-alto.DEC.COM> <12334@mimsy.UUCP>
Organization: Ohio State Computer & Info Science
Lines: 31

In article <12334@mimsy.UUCP>, chris@mimsy.UUCP (Chris Torek) writes:
> In article <3305@palo-alto.DEC.COM> vixie@palo-alto.DEC.COM (Paul Vixie)
	...
> Actually, it has one more use:
> 
> 	while { setup; test } do ...
> 
> or any other place where a compound statement is needed and only
> a single statement is allowed.  (while and until are about it!)

You could write:

	while	command1
		command2
		...
		commandn
	do
		...
	done

This works in the BSD /bin/sh.  I guess this syntax must have been
there all along.

This is an obscure corner of sh/ksh syntax; I was not aware of it
until I reviewed the ksh book by Korn and Bolsky.

> In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci Dept (+1 301 454 7163)

-- 
Larry Cipriani, AT&T Network Systems and Ohio State University
Domain: lvc@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu
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