Hi, Greg Wooledge: > http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/007908799/xcu/chap2.html#tag_001_009_004_002 > First, the list of words following in will be expanded to generate a list > of items. Then, the variable name will be set to each item, in turn, > and the compound-list executed each time. If no items result from the > expansion, the compound-list will not be executed.
Looks like these POSIX specs have been interpreted differently by the shell developers in the past. On the SuSE 6.x system: $ bash --version GNU bash, version 2.03.0(1)-release (i686-pc-linux-gnu) Copyright 1998 Free Software Foundation, Inc. $ for i in ; do echo hello ; done bash: syntax error near unexpected token `;' $ x="" $ for i in $x ; do echo hello ; done $ The decisive point seems wether the "list of words following in" is allowed to be empty or not. An empty result of its expansion is allowed and even a 9 year old bash knows that. Have a nice day :) Thomas -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
