Re: quotes invade positional parameters

[Chet Ramey]

> > Well anyway, it would be 'no skin off of bash's back' if it just
> > reported what it was given.

It's the difference between what bash reads and its translation to an internal
form based on words.  The words are then translated to an external form
with quoting added to make the original and external forms behave identically.

> > If it was given
> > '  'a b c
> > it should report
> > '  'a b c
> > 
> > and not just 'assume' we prefer
> > '  a' b c
> > or
> > '  a' 'b' 'c'
> > etc.

But at that point, the quotes have been discarded.  You're talking about
the words after all the expansions, including quote removal, have been
performed.

> Yea, that's it. It doesn't report what's given, it reports the result of 
> the processing. This is hopefully similar, but definitely not the same.

While it may not be identical in appearance, it's identical in behavior
and effect.  If it's not, that's a bug, and you'd notice it.

Chet

-- 
``The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.'' - Chaucer
                 ``Ars longa, vita brevis'' - Hippocrates
Chet Ramey, ITS, CWRU    chet@case.edu    http://cnswww.cns.cwru.edu/~chet/