Re: Curious special parameter expansion when IFS is null

[Chet Ramey]

A. Alper ATICI wrote:
> Bash Version: 2.05b
> Patch Level: 0
> Release Status: release
>
> Description:
>
> $ set a b c; IFS=, a=$* b="$*"; echo $a; echo "$a"; echo $b; echo "$b"
> a b c
> a,b,c
> a b c
> a,b,c
>
> $ set a b c; IFS= a=$* b="$*"; echo $a; echo "$a"; echo $b; echo "$b"
> a b c
> a b c
> abc
> abc
>
> Considering the output when IFS=, is correct; what's the explanation
> of the output when IFS is null unless it is a bug?

Which part do you consider a bug?

For the assignment to `a', the standard requires that, when unquoted, $*
expand to the positional parameters starting from 1.  It has to be done
in such a way that even when IFS is null they expand into separate
arguments.  (So there is no difference between $@ and $* when unquoted.)

For the assignment to `b', the standard requires that when IFS is null
the parameters be concatenated.

Chet