On Thu, Aug 19, 2010 at 12:32 PM, Marc Herbert <marc.herb...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Since inconsistency is basically "not the same rule
> everywhere", it typically shows in (good) documentation. Indeed:
>
> http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/utilities/xcu_chap02.html#tag_02_06
> 2.6 Word Expansions
> Not all expansions are performed on every word, as explained in the
> following sections.
>
> The above sentence leaves open the scary possibility of a large number
> of combinations and special cases, but of course it is not that badly
> inconsistent.
>
> Focusing back on field splitting, both the opengroup and the (similar)
> bash manual have the same documentation logic: they apparently never
> explicit where field splitting is performed (only before/after which
> expansions it is performed when it is).
> So to understand where field splitting is performed the reader must
> assume that it is performed everywhere, except when it is exceptionally
> missing from an exhaustive list of expansions ("case", assignment,...).
> Unclear and inconvenient.
>
well, at least the assignment case is clearly documented:
"Word splitting is not performed, with the exception of "$@" as
explained below under Special
Parameters. Pathname expansion is not performed.
Assignment statements may also appear as arguments to the alias,
declare, typeset, export, readonly, and local builtin commands."
> Of course the best alternative is the one mentioned by Greg: assume
> that field splitting is consistently performed everywhere and keep
> quoting everything all the time. It is a good habit anyway and
> avoids bugs due to refactoring.
>
>
>
>
>
