Use of Smart Public Functions

This paper is obsolescent. It is too much work to name and segregate smart function names. A smart function is detected in its syntax. Typically:

someSmartFunction () { : abstract ...; ${@:-echo} someFile,orDirectory name; }

My practice has evolved, managing upwards of 2000 functions, many are now in a rarely sourced retiredlib. Also, with rapidly advancing computing speed, I've now added unpacking function libraries into individual files.

The evolutionary thread takes us to the Directory Function Grep practice.

Using smart public functions a developer designates local and public functions. A public function may be accessed from any directory on the user PATH, a local function is accessed via a relative path.

Before proceeding, find the stand-alone smart function

The first requirement of a smart function is it's first argument must also be a function or a command. It must fulfill this bit of shell syntax:

smart_fun () { ${@:-echo} namea nameb ... ; } 
declare -f $(smart_fun)    # shows the function bodies, or
smart_fun declare -f       # also works, so the default 
smart_fun                  # simply lists their names.

The smart list is a generalization of what I'd previously called a smart file. A smartfile is, in effect, a smart_list with a single element. It might be called a smart_value.

This practice is now obsolescent. Collecting the smartfiles in a central repository was more trouble than it was worth. These paragraphs will soon become COMMENTs in this document.

• this paper appears online at http://mcgowans.org/pubs/marty3/commonplace/software/smartpublic.html
• the Red Chapter
• library development
• SHELF proposal.