Date: Sun, 2 Jul 2023 21:04:38 -0400 From: Greg Wooledge <g...@wooledge.org> Message-ID: <zkiepsrizkqze...@wooledge.org>
| The first assignment is done before the value of "m" is used in the second | assignment. Note that that is a shell specific feature, applies to bash, but not necessarily to other shells (some will do it that way, others won't). | This feature is commonly used in the following constructs: | extract=${input#*<} extract=${extract%>*} | data=$(cat file; printf x) data=${data%x} which would be made truly portable if written extract=${input#*<}; extract=${extract%>*} data=$(cat file; printf x); data=${data%x} Is there really that much to be gained by omitting a semicolon in a sequence like that? The only time it matters if if the assignments in question are prefixes to some other command. Rather than relying upon that kind of non-portable construct, you'd be better to restructure the code, and avoid the issue, but this is very rare except when someone is deliberately trying to make things non-portable. kre