> I'm willing to try the CVS versions of autoconf later on, but > can't promise when I'll get to it. I can confirm, though, that > the bug I'm running into only happened when I rebuilt bash and > specified the --enable_xpg_default option.
You would have seen the same results had you specified the `-e' option to echo. The behavior is consistent, and will remain so. > It might be "late" to change the requirement to "\0" is required as > the leading for all numeric constants, but as has been stated here, no > application should be relying on "\1" being interpreted as "^A" if it > is desired that it be portable. I don't believe it's "too late", considering that you had to compile bash with a non-default set of configuration options to encounter the problem. However, I like consistency, and I believe that it's important to have -e and the xpg_echo option produce identical output. I don't favor being deliberately incompatible, though, unless there's a compelling reason. This doesn't seem to measure up to that standard. The remaining consideration is whether or not there's a significant body of scripts out there that rely on the current behavior. If there isn't, I would strongly consider the change to require a leading `0' in octal constants. I don't think that \x introducing hex constants is as big a problem (it may not be a problem at all). Chet -- ``The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.'' - Chaucer ( ``Discere est Dolere'' -- chet ) Live Strong. No day but today. Chet Ramey, ITS, CWRU [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://cnswww.cns.cwru.edu/~chet/