Re: bash "extglob" needs to upgrade at least like zsh "kshglob"

[Chet Ramey]

On 11/20/22 7:50 AM, Koichi Murase wrote:

>    This difference is caused because the slash after the backslash is
>    only checked after a matching character is found
>    (lib/glob/sm_loop.c:703).  The same check should be applied also
>    before a matching character is found (lib/glob/sm_loop.c:573).  I
>    attach a patch for this [r0037.brackmatch6.remaining-slash.patch].

I agree with this; it was an inadvertent omission.


> There is another related inconsistency.  I just modified my new
> extglob engine to follow Bash's choice described above, but then the
> behavior became different from that of the actual implementation of
> Bash of the current devel.
>
> > "If a pattern ends with an unescaped <backslash>, it is unspecified whether
> > the pattern does not match anything or the pattern is treated as invalid."
        [...]
> b. If this is the behavior for the unescaped backslashes outside the
>    bracket expressions, which is intensionally different from those in
>    the bracket expressions, would it be possible to change the
>    treatment of the unescaped backslashes inside the bracket
>    expression the same as that of outside so the bracket `[' matches
>    literally (as expected in cases #28..#31 of my previous reply [1])?
>    The attached [r0037.brackmatch7.unescaped-backslash-option-b.patch]
>    is the corresponding patch.

I have changed my mind, and I agree with this. I think the latest draft
of the POSIX standard requires it unambiguously:

"A <left-square-bracket> that does not introduce a valid bracket expression
shall match the character itself."

and while it does not say so explicitly (the description defers to the
regular expression description, which describes valid bracket expressions
as having a closing bracket), I think it's reasonable to conclude that an
incomplete bracket expression without a `]' is invalid, this text from the
regular expression description aside:

"An expression containing a '[' that is unescaped and is not part of a
bracket expression produces undefined results."

since the text in "Patterns Matching a Single Character" supersedes it.

I attached the latest patch against bash-5.2.9.

Chet
--
``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/

bracket-slash.patch
Description: Text document