On Mon, Oct 18, 2021 at 04:10:34PM +0200, Wolfgang Denk wrote:
> Dear Tom,
> 
> In message <20211018133728.GQ7964@bill-the-cat> you wrote:
> > 
> > > And please see also my comments about changing the autostart
> > > functionality for the user.
> >
> > Perhaps we should just make "+" an illegal character in the variable
> > name, for consistency?
> 
> And break backward compatibility?  I'd rather see a better
> definition of the syntax of the environment files, plus maybe a more
> powerful parser.

Are there examples today of scripts that use "+" in the variable names?
That maybe someone wrote a custom an private thing that uses + in the
name isn't the best argument.  Someone saying that did would be better.

> I mean, there is no technical reason to forbid the '+' character -
> and then it's only at the end of the variable name.

Of course yes, if we can just make the parser handle it, without it also
being a tricky nightmare, that's the better solution.

> Hm... I can't find it right now but did I not also read about other
> restrictions to variable names, like they must noch begin with '_'
> when using this new tool?

Any invalid characters need to be clearly documented, if they aren't,
yes.

> I feel it is wrong to place new restrictions on something that was
> constant for 21 years, just because our parser cannot parse it...

Sure.  But if it's also the case that for 21 years no one has been using
foo+bar, baz+, etc, in their variable names, maybe we just document
that's not valid and move on?

-- 
Tom