Re: Bug#519165: [Fwd: Bug#519165: bash 4 regression]

[martin f krafft]

also sprach Chet Ramey <chet.ramey@case.edu> [2009.07.03.1952 +0200]:
> There is, in fact a de facto standard, but the bash4 behavior is
> what the Bourne and Korn shells have always done.  In fact, the only
> way Martin's statement is true is if "all other shells" means "dash",
> since that's the only other shell I found that doesn't apply set -u to
> $@ and $*.
> 
> A partial list of shells that honor set -u when expanding $@ and $*:
> 
> bash4
> all versions of the bourne shell from v7 to svr4.2
> all versions of the korn shell
> pdksh and variants like mksh and posh
> ash and its descendents except dash

zsh.

> > We can debate this issue ad mortem infinitumque (but let's not).
> > Fact is that this is a regression, which upstream camouflaged as
> > a bug fix, when instead there should have been a deprecation
> > period. Expecting everyone to change their scripts to work
> > around bash's eclectic interpretation of $@/$* is not the way
> > forward.
> 
> Beautiful language, but incorrect.  The current bash4 behavior is
> not an "eclectic interpretation," but consistent with how shells
> have historically behaved.

Fine, if the standards group comes up with a standard on this, by
all means. But there really ought to be a deprecation period.

-- 
 .''`.   martin f. krafft <madduck@d.o>      Related projects:
: :'  :  proud Debian developer               http://debiansystem.info
`. `'`   http://people.debian.org/~madduck    http://vcs-pkg.org
  `-  Debian - when you have better things to do than fixing systems

digital_signature_gpg.asc
Description: Digital signature (see http://martin-krafft.net/gpg/)