Re: document export x=1 y=$x

[Stephane Chazelas]

On Tue, Mar 18, 2008 at 01:11:35AM +0800, jidanni@jidanni.org wrote:
> On the man page at section "export", mention that the latter below
> will not do what one expects, as here revealed:
> $ set -x
> $ a=1 b=$a
> + a=1
> + b=1
> $ export x=1 y=$x
> + export x=1 y=
> + x=1
> + y=
> Yes I'm sure it is mentioned elsewhere on the page but you might want
> to drum it home again here. Maybe also at $ help export.
[...]

Yes, "export" and the "typeset/local/integer"... family of
commands is a bit confusing, and the behavior varies a lot
between shells.

In ksh, they behave more like an assignment qualifier
(in terms of how the command line is parsed) (though not
completely as in export $vars)

In zsh and ash, they behave like a normal built in.

In bash, it's a bit inbetween.

I think the POSIX spec as it is written now would say that
zsh and ash are correct.

In ksh,

a="b c"
export d=$a $d

exports the d variable with value "b c" and the b and c
variables. Because d=$a is treated as a variable assignment.

in ash/zsh (in sh emulation)

exports the d variable with value b and the c variable.
because, it's a simple command line parsed like a simple command
line with word splitting et all and it's the "export" command
that performs the assignment.

in bash

exports the d variable with value "b c" and that's it.

Typically, my advice would be to avoid the 

export var=value

syntax and to prefer:

var=value export var

Which is more portable (even to the Bourne shell!), and you know
where you stand.

-- 
Stéphane