Feature Request: C struct-like template

[William Park]

Here is another feature request.

In C struct, eg.
    struct {
        char date[7], dev[16], ver[32], rev[10], ...
    }
you just access variables, and compiler will do the offsetting.  I would
like something like that, where I don't have to do the bookkeeping.

Right now, I am doing
    set -- ...break into arguments...
and access $1, $2, ..., ${@:20:32}, ...  Or,
    read -a tokens
and acess tokens[0], tokens[1], ...
This is fine for few arguments, but when it goes to few hundreds, it's
very easy to make mistakes and very difficult to catch it.

So, how about C-like struct template to put your arguments into?

You can build the template like
    template=(
        date 7
        dev 16
        ver 32
        rev 10
        ...
    )
and it will put the first 7 arguments into array "date", next 16
arguments into array "dev", next 32 arguments into array "ver", next 10
arguments into array "rev", ...

Then, I just use variable "rev" and that would be equivalent to
${@:55:10}.

Where it would useful?  
    - parsing real-life CSV files
    - parsing UDP packets, for prototyping.
    - parsing anything that has fixed width format.
    - ...
-- 
William Park <opengeometry@yahoo.ca>