Ron wrote on 2025-08-23 00:28:

The fish syntax is *so much better*.

I'm reminded of how nginx came along and really took a lot of install base from Apache. Is it because it's faster? Maybe; debatable on equivalent work loads (from my understanding). Is it because the configuration syntax is much cleaner, clearer, legible, and sane? I think so. One quirk I've encountered is in passing an array to a function and accessing it as a variable. This may be due to a failure to understand something on my part, but I don't think so. Functions are defined something like this (formatting for personal preference only): ``` #!/usr/bin/env fish function myfunc \ --description "This appears in tab-completion hints" \ -a my_arr echo -e "Inside myfunc \$my_arr has $(count $my_arr) item:\n $my_arr" echo -e "Inside myfunc \$argv has $(count $argv) items:" set -l i 1 for arg in $argv echo " $i/$(count $argv): \$argv[$i]: $argv[$i] (or \$arg: $arg)" set i (math $i + 1) end ## printf "myfunc argv passed: %s\n" $argv end ## In bash, ** requires `shopt -s globstar` ## and `shopt -s nullglob` lest one gets either the string "./**/*.cache" ## if no matches or something else unwanted (I forget) set files (ls ./**/*.cache) echo "Found $(count $files) files in a test array" ## Indexing starts at 1 (yay!): myfunc $files[1..5] $ ./test2.fish Found 500 files in a test array Inside myfunc $my_arr has 1 item: ./baz/delme-100.cache Inside myfunc $argv has 5 items: 1/5: $argv[1]: ./baz/delme-100.cache (or $arg: ./baz/delme-100.cache) 2/5: $argv[2]: ./baz/delme-101.cache (or $arg: ./baz/delme-101.cache) 3/5: $argv[3]: ./baz/delme-102.cache (or $arg: ./baz/delme-102.cache) 4/5: $argv[4]: ./baz/delme-103.cache (or $arg: ./baz/delme-103.cache) 5/5: $argv[5]: ./baz/delme-104.cache (or $arg: ./baz/delme-104.cache) ❰uid1❙~/utils/ysap-bash/progress-bar❱ ✔ ≻ ``` So, passing in an array and capturing the entire array in a local variable does not (seem to) work. However, that array is accessible as $argv, so ... that's okay. I do like that indexing starts at 1 - that's great!