On Sun, Mar 10, 2024 at 04:01:10PM -0400, Lawrence Velázquez wrote: > Basically, without an assignment, "local -g" does nothing.
Well, the original purpose of -g was to create variables, especially associative arrays, at the global scope from inside a function. I think this thread has been asking about a completely different application, namely to operate upon a global scope variable from within a function where a non-global scope variable is shadowing the global one. (As far as I know, there isn't any sensible way to do that in bash.) Here it is in action. "local -g" (or "declare -g") without an assignment in the same command definitely does things. hobbit:~$ f() { declare -g var; var=in_f; } hobbit:~$ unset -v var; f; declare -p var declare -- var="in_f" I think the key to understanding is that while "local -g var" creates a variable at the global scope, any references to "var" within the function still use the standard dynamic scoping rules. They won't necessarily *see* the global variable, if there's another one at a more localized scope.