[Bash-completion-devel] Necessity to make bash function local to make the development of bash-completion easier

[Peng Yu]

Hi, I am proposing to add local function to bash. This will help
manage the namespace in bash and will improve performance by move
functions used to be in global namespace to local namespaces.

https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/help-bash/2015-04/msg00014.html
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bash/2015-04/msg00091.html
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bash/2015-04/msg00147.html

However, Chet, the maintainer of bash, basically requires showing real
examples why this is a necessary feature.

This is a dilemma, because the real benefit of local functions will
only be apparent for very large library based on bash, but lacking
such a feature limit the size of any real bash library that can
become, and as such, there are few bash libraries that I know of. Or
bash programmers need to use some dirty tricks for problems which
should really be solved by local functions.

bash-completion is one bash library that I know. I believe local
function can help the development of bash-compeletion (and other bash
library) in the long run.

If any of you also thinks so, would you please join the discussion in
help-bash/bug-bash to provide more realistic examples and to show how
having local functions can improve bash library development, e.g., for
bash-completion? Thanks.

-- 
Regards,
Peng