On Sun, Jun 28, 2009 at 11:39:16PM +0200, Cristian Ionescu-Idbohrn wrote:
>
> But wait a second.  Shouldn't quotes '"' around $@ protect the whole $...@?
> It does so in different other context.  Why not here?

The whole point of $@ is to retain field splitting within double
quotes:

2.5.2      Special Parameters
           Listed below are the special parameters and the values to
           which they shall expand. Only the values of the special
           parameters are listed; see Section 2.6 (on page 2238) for
           a detailed summary
           of all the stages involved in expanding words.
           @    Expands to the positional parameters, starting from
                one. When the expansion occurs within double-quotes,
                and where field splitting (see Section 2.6.5 (on
                page 2244)) is performed, each positional parameter
                shall expand as a separate field, with the provision
                that the expansion of the first parameter shall
                still be joined with the beginning part of the
                original word (assuming that the expanded parameter
                was embedded within a word), and the expansion of
                the last parameter shall still be joined with the
                last part of the original word. If there are no
                positional parameters, the expansion of '@' shall
                generate zero fields, even when '@' is double-quoted.

> There's som parallel unnatural behaviour I noticed:
> 
>       local var=$(some forked thing here)
> 
> $(...)
> ^^   ^ doesn't seem to protect the resulting string. There seems to be a
> difference between:
> 
>       local h=$(grep --help)
> 
> and:
> 
>       local h="$(grep --help)"
> 
> Can anything motivate that?  Is that POSIX too?

As I said local is identical to any other utility in this respect,
including shell functions.

Cheers,
-- 
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