On 8/10/18 9:15 AM, Robert Elz wrote:
> On this issue, I have also finally realised the answer to another thing
> that had perplexed me for ages (not about the standard, well, perhaos
> a fix is required, but not all that significant) and certainly not about
> what the shells should, or do, produce, which is clear, but about how
> people speak about one issue.
>
> That is, when there is discussion of expanding (unquoted) $* or $@
> (and sometimes even perhaps "$@" though never "$*") some people
> speak (or write) as if $* (or $@) produces a word, which is then field
> split, to produce one field for each arg (or each non-null arg).
>
> I never understood how anyone could approach it that way, when
> 2.5.2 is quite clear ...
>
> Expands to the positional parameters, starting from one, initially
> producing one field for each positional parameter that is set.
That is relatively new language. From the first published version of the
standard in 1992 through at least 2013, the first sentence ended at `one'.
I think the current language was introduced with interpretation 888, which
was approved in 2015.
There was a fairly long email discussion dating from late 2014 that
resulted in the interpretation.
--
``The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.'' - Chaucer
``Ars longa, vita brevis'' - Hippocrates
Chet Ramey, UTech, CWRU c...@case.edu http://tiswww.cwru.edu/~chet/
