Re: weird ksh eval behavior

[Matthias Kilian]

On Thu, Dec 01, 2005 at 08:43:31PM +0100, Ralf Wildenhues wrote:
> With ash-0.3.8, OpenBSD 3.8 'sh' and 'ksh' PD KSH v5.2.14 99/07/13.2,
> I get
> 
> $ false; eval 'foo=$?'; echo $foo
> 0
> 
> Is this a shell bug, or am I doing something wrong?

If POSIX mode is enabled by using `set -o posix' or setting
POSIXLY_CORRECT, the above command line results in a `1'.

eval's mentioned in pdksh's manpage (section `POSIX mode'), but
that relates to the exit status of eval. I'm not sure wether it's
a documentation bug. Quoting ksh(1):

  eval exit status.  If eval gets to see an empty command (i.e.
  eval `false`), its exit status in POSIX mode will be 0.  In
  non-POSIX mode, it will be the exit status of the last command
  substitution that was done in the processing of the arguments to
  eval (or 0 if there were no command substitutions).

Ciao,
        Kili