Bernd Eggink wrote: > Is the following difference intentional, a bug, or do I miss something? > > unset a > set -- "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" > echo $# > > Output: 0
This is correct. > typeset a > set -- "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" > echo $# > > Output: 1 The question is how to treat the variable created by `typeset'. Bash has traditionally treated `typeset a' as equivalent to `typeset a=""' instead of creating a `placeholder' variable that exists in a sort of limbo. That's different from things like `export a' or `readonly a', and probably inconsistent enough to be worth changing for bash-4.0. That's the difference between the examples, not the expansion of "[EMAIL PROTECTED]". Chet Chet > > The man page says, "If the word is double-quoted, ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] > expands > each element of name to a separate word. When there are no array > members, [EMAIL PROTECTED] expands to nothing." It doesn't mention a > difference between an empty and an unset variable in this context. As a > quoted 'nothing' normally counts 1 word, the 'nothing' in the first > example appears to be some kind of 'super-nothing'. > > Regards, > Bernd > -- ``The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.'' - Chaucer Chet Ramey, ITS, CWRU [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://cnswww.cns.cwru.edu/~chet/
