Re: unwanted expansion of variable with nested strings

[Paul Jarc]

Mike Frysinger <vapier@gentoo.org> wrote:
> $ foo="a b c"
> $ gawk 'BEGIN {foo="'${foo}'"}'
> gawk: BEGIN {foo="a
> gawk:            ^ unterminated string

This is normal.  man bash:

#   Word Splitting
#       The  shell  scans the results of parameter expansion, command substitu-
#       tion, and arithmetic expansion that did not occur within double  quotes
#       for word splitting.

> so if i quote ${foo} like so:
> $ gawk 'BEGIN {foo="'"${foo}"'"}'
> it'll work in this case, but then fail if foo contains newlines:
> foo="a
> b
> c"

What do you mean by "fail"?  What do you want to happen in this case?


paul