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Diffstat (limited to 'TODO')
| -rw-r--r-- | TODO | 162 |
1 files changed, 162 insertions, 0 deletions
@@ -0,0 +1,162 @@ +Fri Jun 19 12:44:56 IDT 2015 +============================ + +There were too many files tracking different thoughts and ideas for +things to do, or consider doing. This file merges them into one. As +tasks are completed, they should be removed. + +This file should exist only in the master branch or branches based off +of it for development, but not in the stable branch. This may require some +careful work with Git. + +TODO +==== + +Minor Cleanups and Code Improvements +------------------------------------ + + API: + ??? #if !defined(GAWK) && !defined(GAWK_OMIT_CONVENIENCE_MACROS) + + ?? Add debugger commands to reference card + + Look at function order within files. + + Consider removing use of and/or need for the protos.h file. + + Recheck if gnulib regex can be dropped in + + Fully synchronize whitespace tests (for \s, \S in Unicode + environment) with those of GNU grep. + +Minor New Features +------------------ + + Enable command line source text in the debugger. + + Enhance extension/fork.c waitpid to allow the caller to specify + the options. And add an optional array argument to wait and + waitpid in which to return exit status information. + + Consider relaxing the strictness of --posix. + + ? Add an optional base to strtonum, allowing 2-36. + + ? Optional third argument for index indicating where to start the + search. + +Major New Features +------------------ + + Think about how to generalize indirect access. Manuel Collado + suggests things like + + foo = 5 + @"foo" += 4 + + Also needed: + + Indirect through array elements, not just scalar variables + + Add ability to do decimal arithmetic. + + Rework management of array index storage. (Partially DONE.) + + Consider using an atom table for all string array indices. + + DBM storage of awk arrays. Try to allow multiple dbm packages. + + ?? A RECLEN variable for fixed-length record input. PROCINFO["RS"] + would be "RS" or "RECLEN" depending upon what's in use. + *** Could this be done as an extension? + + ?? Use a new or improved dfa and/or regex library. + + Rewrite in C++. + +Things To Think About That May Never Happen +------------------------------------------- + + Consider making shadowed variables a warning and not + a fatal warning when --lint=fatal. + + Similar for extra parameters in a function call. + + Look at code coverage tools, like S2E: https://s2e.epfl.ch/ + + Try running with diehard. See http://www.diehard-software.org, + https://github.com/emeryberger/DieHard + + Implement namespaces. Arnold suggested the following in an email: + - Extend the definition of an 'identifier' to include "." as a valid + character although an identifier can't start with it. + - Extension libraries install functions and global variables with names + that have a "." in them: XML.parse(), XML.name, whatever. + - Awk code can read/write such variables and call such functions, + but they cannot define such functions + function XML.foo() { .. } # error + or create a variable with such a name if it doesn't exist. This would + be a run-time error, not a parse-time error. + - This last rule may be too restrictive. + I don't want to get into fancy rules a la perl and file-scope visibility + etc, I'd like to keep things simple. But how we design this is going + to be very important. + + Include a sample rpm spec file in a new packaging subdirectory. + (Really needed?) + + Patch lexer for @include and @load to make quotes optional. + (Really needed?) + + Add a lint check if the return value of a function is used but + the function did not supply a value. + + Consider making gawk output +nan for NaN values so that it + will accept its own output as input. + NOTE: Investigated this. GLIBC formats NaN as '-nan' + and -NaN as 'nan'. Dealing with this is not simple. + + Enhance FIELDWIDTHS with some way to indicate "the rest of the record". + E.g., a length of 0 or -1 or something. Maybe "n"? + + Review the bash source script for working with shared libraries in + order to nuke the use of libtool. [ Partially started in the + dead-branches/nolibtool branch. ] + +Things That We Decided We Will Never Do +======================================= + + Consider moving var_value info into Node_var itself to reduce + memory usage. This would break all uses of get_lhs in the + code. It's too sweeping a change. + + Add macros for working with flags instead of using & and | + directly. + + FIX regular field splitting to use FPAT algorithm. + Note: Looked at this. Not sure it's with the trouble: + If it ain't broke... + + Scope IDs for IPv6 addresses + + Gnulib + + Make FIELDWIDTHS be an array? + + "Do an optimization pass over parse tree?" + This isn't relevant now that we are using a byte code engine. + + "Consider integrating Fred Fish's DBUG library into gawk." + I did this once as an experiment. But I don't see a lot of value + to this at this stage of the development. Stepping through things + in a debugger is generally enough. Also, I would have to try to + track down the latest version of this. + + "Make awk '/foo/' files... run at egrep speeds" (How?) + This has been on the list since the early days (gawk 1.x or early + 2.x). But I am not sure how to really do this, nor have I done + timings, nor does there seem to be any real demand for this. + + Change from dlopen to using the libltdl library (i.e. lt_dlopen). + This may support more platforms. If we move off of libtool + then this is the wrong direction. |