dpk wrote: > On Fri, 12 Aug 2005, Xu Qiang wrote: >> 1. The way of incrementing the variable NCOREFILES. Why does it use >> the formula of "NCOREFILES=$[ $NCOREFILES + 1 ]", and not the direct >> way of "NCOREFILES=$NCOREFILES+1"? > > If that was done, NCOREFILES would end up looking like: > > +1+1+1+1+1+1+1 > > as bash does not automatically differentiate between numeric and > string variables. What the funky looking construct does is convince > bash to treat it as a numeric/arithmetic expression.
Strangely, there is no mention of this assignment usage in the book "Learning the bash shell, 2nd ed" by O'Reilly at my hand. :( And "man bash" didn't talk of it either. However, it mentioned for arithmetic evaluation, we can use id++ id-- variable post-increment and post-decrement ++id --id variable pre-increment and pre-decrement If it is correct, then I can also increment NCOREFILES by: ++NCOREFILES. But I doubt it... Regards, Xu Qiang _______________________________________________ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"