Robert Elz wrote: > ps: I did not suggest that $_ should go away, I know that's not going to > happen ... just that it would be nice for those who really don't want it to > be able to turn it off.
I'm having a hard time understanding why one would want to turn off this feature. It isn't something that everyone uses but it is a feature that has a lot of use. If one goes down that path then the end result taken to the logical extreme would be that every feature would have a control to turn them on and off. That just seems extreme. And for the case of $_ if you didn't know it existed then one probably goes about their life continuing to not be bothered by it too. The original report wasn't really about $_ anyway. Ricky Tigg wrote: > Built-in function 'set' produces variable outputs. > $ export SSLKEYLOGFILE=/home/user/test > $ set | grep SSL > SSLKEYLOGFILE=/home/user/test > _=SSLKEYLOGFILE > $ set | grep SSL > SSLKEYLOGFILE=/home/user/test The original report was about the output being different in different invocations. But I think that is an invalid reason. Because if so then 'echo $RANDOM' is also a bug because it produces different output in different invocations too. And because set | grep is not a correct way to look at the environment as such either. The 'set' command is designed to set or unset shell options or the positional parameters. Without any arguments "set shall write the names and values of all shell variables in the collation sequence of the current locale". Since $_ is a shell variable it writes it out along with possibly other data too. I don't think anyone grep'ing for a string should complain that the shell also prints out the contents of $_. As an additional point 'set' writes out the internal data which includes a lot of *stuff*. It would be better in this case to use 'env' to write out only the exported variables. And clearly in the original report the string being looked for was part of the exported data. There is no problem then. $ export SSLKEYLOGFILE=/home/user/test $ env | grep SSL SSLKEYLOGFILE=/home/user/test $ env | grep SSL SSLKEYLOGFILE=/home/user/test However even 'env' isn't the appropriate tool either. There may be other variables that happen to hit the grep pattern. And there is the problem of the variable value including newlines. The -z,--null helps here but life isn't simple. Not that I would do it this way but 'printenv' seems to be the right matching utility here. $ export SSLKEYLOGFILE=/home/user/test $ printenv SSLKEYLOGFILE /home/user/test Using grep is fine. But then the human must interpret the results accordingly. I think here understanding that 'set' is doing what is expected and reasonable is enough. However I would use 'env' to avoid the internal data state. And programatically neither are sufficient for a fully robust program and other methods should be used. Bob