On Fri, Jun 25, 2021 at 03:15:25PM +0200, Nora Platiel wrote: > But at least it is documented, and that part of the doc is clear to me. > The part of the doc that I'm complaining about is this one: > > | A variable may be assigned to by a statement of the form > | name=[value] > | [...] > | Word splitting is not performed, with the exception of "$@" as > | explained below.
This isn't the full sentence in the current man page. In the bash 5.1 man page, it says: Word splitting is not performed, with the exception of "$@" as explained below under Special Parameters. So, we need to look at Special Parameters: @ Expands to the positional parameters, starting from one. In contexts where word splitting is performed, this expands each positional parameter to a separate word; if not within double quotes, these words are subject to word splitting. In contexts where word splitting is not performed, this expands to a single word with each positional parameter separated by a space. That matches the behavior that I saw (and pasted on this mailing list the other day). (Which by the way is *not* the same as "$*" unless IFS happens to be unset or to begin with a space.) If Chet feels that a change is needed here, I would remove the "with the exception of" clause entirely. Just say "Word splitting is not performed."