Re: [PATCH 0/4] Add import builtin

[Lawrence Velázquez]

On Thu, May 2, 2024, at 6:22 PM, Matheus Afonso Martins Moreira wrote:
> Bash scripts can be hard to get right so reusing proven solutions
> as shell script libraries is of immense value. However, the existing
> shell script sourcing mechanisms are suboptimal for this task.
> The source builtin uses the PATH variable for resolving file names
> which means they would have to be placed alongside normal executables
> which could cause confusion.

This is debatable.  Augmenting PATH with a directory containing
nonexecutable scripts for sourcing is IMO not that confusing.

> This patch set introduces a new "import" builtin which behaves just like
> the source builtin but only looks up executables in the BASH_IMPORT_PATH
> variable.

I really don't think "'source' with a different search path" merits
a separate builtin.  This could be accomplished by creating a new
path variable and modifying "source" to use it.  (Perhaps "source"
could diverge from "." on this, in which case there wouldn't be a
POSIX conformance issue.)

Put another way, "." already has an identical synonym in "source".
If it's deemed desirable to fiddle with sourcing behavior, I think
it makes more sense to utilize "source" than to introduce a third,
almost-but-not-quite-identical synonym.

If "import" were qualitatively different from "source" (say it
integrated some sort of namespace functionality), then it would be
more compelling.

-- 
vq