Re: Issue declaring an array via a variable name

[Chet Ramey]

On 8/21/21 6:02 PM, Hunter Wittenborn wrote:
> > As an end user I would expect the unquoted `('
>
> > operator to cause a syntax error, just as it does in `echo ('.
>
>
>
> Well I'm expecting '(' to be part of the shell's syntax (when unquoted; so 
> likewise not cause a syntax error), but when looking at things like the left 
> side of a variable assignment, I'm sure you'll agree that it should allow any 
> string that fits a variable's normal specification (regardless of being an 
> array or not).

Maybe this is best seen as a misunderstanding about order of operations.

Before the `declare' builtin is executed, the command has to be parsed.
The parser identifies the token `declare' as the first word of a simple
command, and further identifies `declare' as a declaration command, as
explained in the documentation.

One thing about the shell's metacharacters (of which `(' is one) is that
they have to be quoted when they appear somewhere outside where the shell's
grammar permits. One place bash allows `(' -- an extension to the POSIX
grammar -- is on the rhs of an assignment statement.

Given a declaration command, the shell parser allows assignment statements
as arguments. An assignment statement, as documented, takes the form

identifier=value

where `identifier' is a `name' (as defined in the bash documentation) or an
array subscript of the form `name[index]'.

The key to understanding this is that all of this must happen before any of
the shell's word expansions, including quote removal, take place.

If the shell parser can't recognize a word, or at least the word that's
been accumulated when it sees the `(' operator, as a valid assignment
statement, the exception to having to quote the left paren doesn't come
into play.

We can disregard arguments that contain `=' that may be treated as 
assignments when `declare' sees them as long as they don't contain any
shell metacharacters:

> `declare "${value}"="x"`
>
> `declare "y"="x"`

However, if you want the parser to allow an unquoted metacharacter, you
have to follow the rules that allow it to happen, and this does not:

> `declare "${value}"=("x" "z")`

Because "${value}" is not a valid shell `name' and cannot appear on the
lhs of an assignment statement.

Given that, it should be obvious why the above is a syntax error.

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