Re: possible bug with $@ and and non-standard IFS

[Chet Ramey]

JR Rothschild wrote:
> Hi,
> In either version 3.1.17 (SUSE 10) or 3.2.25 (RHEL 5.3), with $DISPLAY
> set to :0.0
> the following script gives unexpected results.(It works with version
> 3.0.15 - RHEL4.6)  The echo should print out
> 
> smith:0.0

It shouldn't display that; there are different bugs in 3.0 and 3.1/3.2.

> instead of
> 
> smith 0.0

That's not right, either.

> #!!/bin/bash
> dh=smith
> oldIFS=$IFS
> IFS=:
> set $DISPLAY
> nd="${dh}:$@"
> IFS=$oldIFS
> 
> echo $nd

The correct output is "smith: 0.0".  The `smith' from $dh, the literal
colon, the space from the spaces separating the "$@" (splitting on `:'
results in $1 being a null field), then the 0.0 ($2).

If you use nd="${dh}$*" before resetting IFS, you'll get the output you
in bash-3.0 through bash-4.0.

Chet

-- 
``The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.'' - Chaucer

Chet Ramey, ITS, CWRU    chet@case.edu    http://cnswww.cns.cwru.edu/~chet/