A NOTE has been added to this issue. ====================================================================== https://www.austingroupbugs.net/view.php?id=1915 ====================================================================== Reported By: steffen Assigned To: ====================================================================== Project: 1003.1(2016/18)/Issue7+TC2 Issue ID: 1915 Category: Shell and Utilities Type: Clarification Requested Severity: Editorial Priority: normal Status: New Name: steffen Organization: User Reference: Section: 2.5.2 Page Number: 2479 Line Number: 80382 Interp Status: --- Final Accepted Text: ====================================================================== Date Submitted: 2025-03-17 19:17 UTC Last Modified: 2025-04-17 10:00 UTC ====================================================================== Summary: clarification of 2.6.5 field splitting of 2.5.2 special parameter $* ======================================================================
---------------------------------------------------------------------- (0007138) geoffclare (manager) - 2025-04-17 10:00 https://www.austingroupbugs.net/view.php?id=1915#c7138 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Here is a much simpler test script which eliminates the unspecified behaviour and shows clearly the issue that Steffen has identified: <pre>set a: a IFS=: printf '[%s]\n' $*</pre> I get two different results with this script: ksh93 and dash produce:<pre>[a] [a]</pre>but ksh88, bash and mksh produce:<pre>[a] [] [a]</pre> The standard requires the ksh93/dash behaviour. Shells which first do a quoted expansion and then split it end up splitting "a::a" which produces the extra empty field. This difference happens because IFS characters are terminators not separators (as stated in the RATIONALE on the sh page). Issue History Date Modified Username Field Change ====================================================================== 2025-03-17 19:17 steffen New Issue 2025-03-18 10:31 geoffclare Note Added: 0007122 2025-03-18 11:29 lanodan Note Added: 0007123 2025-03-18 11:32 lanodan Note Edited: 0007123 2025-03-18 12:11 geoffclare Note Added: 0007124 2025-04-17 10:00 geoffclare Note Added: 0007138 ======================================================================
