Help! Csh is eating my brain....

[P. D. Guthrie]

In article <366 at zaphod.UUCP> flory at zaphod.UUCP (Trevor Flory) writes:
>Hello All;
>	I'm trying to debug a csh script written by someone who
>	knew what he was doing I'm sure.  Below is a fragment of
>	the script which I find rather difficult to understand:
>		...
>		alias readandset 'echo -n \!:1 ; set \!:2 = $< ' 
>		...
>		readandset "Choice? " chvar
>		...
>		if("$chvar" == "quit") ....
>
>	In particular I'd like to know what \!:1 or \!:2 means/does.
>

This notation simply replaces itself with the corresponding arguments in
the original line, so it echos the first argument, and sets  the  second
one to a line from stdin.  Why doesn't ksh have something like  this?  I
hate having to use fc and mess around with its output - and that's soooo
inefficient! 

					Paul Guthrie