Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!purdue!umd5!mimsy!chris
From: chris@mimsy.UUCP (Chris Torek)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: what's the use of "{ list }" in /bin/sh?
Message-ID: <12334@mimsy.UUCP>
Date: 6 Jul 88 18:46:43 GMT
References: <23590@teknowledge-vaxc.ARPA> <3305@palo-alto.DEC.COM>
Organization: U of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Science, Coll. Pk., MD 20742
Lines: 20

In article <3305@palo-alto.DEC.COM> vixie@palo-alto.DEC.COM (Paul Vixie)
writes various examples (deleted), then:
>Summary: {list} is useful if you go southpaw with it.  Other than
>that it seems useless and I can't imagine why it exists.

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 (setup; test) do ...

but that invokes an extra fork.
-- 
In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci Dept (+1 301 454 7163)
Domain:	chris@mimsy.umd.edu	Path:	uunet!mimsy!chris