Andrew Josey wrote, on 31 Mar 2025: > > I took an action to call for input on this item > > Bug 1915: clarification of 2.6.5 field splitting of 2.5.2 special parameter $* > https://www.austingroupbugs.net/view.php?id=1915 > We need the shell authors to decide on this item. > 2025-03-27: AI Andrew: Ask shell developers for guidance on requirements.
Andrew received a reply asking for clarification of what input we need. This was discussed in today's teleconference, and I proposed the following response, which it was agreed I should send to this list so that the other shell authors also see it ... The only unspecified aspect of the expansion of unquoted $* is whether empty fields are discarded before field splitting is performed. This leads to an expectation that there would be two different behaviors across conforming shells, but using the test script in Mantis bug 1915 we have observed four different behaviors among shells whose behavior we usually consider when investigating issues: one shared by dash, ksh93 and yash; and one each from bash, mksh and ksh88. (See bugnotes 7123 and 7124.) So I think the question for the shell authors is can they reach a consensus on which two behaviors are "right" (by which I mean they meet user expectations, not that they behave as currently described in the standard), or do they think more than two of the observed behaviors are valid? Once we decide which behaviors should be allowed, we can then start to work on how to change the wording in the standard to match. -- Geoff Clare <g.cl...@opengroup.org> The Open Group, Apex Plaza, Forbury Road, Reading, RG1 1AX, England
