Here strings and pathname expansion

[Jan Schampera]

Hello world,


I recently answered a question about using the asterisk mixed with 
redirection and other words. This also lead me to the documentation that 
states (REDIRECTION section):

---
The  word  following  the  redirection  operator in the following 
descriptions, unless otherwise noted, is subjected to brace expansion, 
tilde expansion, parameter expansion, command substitution, arithmetic 
expansion, quote removal, pathname expansion, and word splitting.  If it 
expands to more than one word, bash reports an error.
---

This is true, for here documents the exceptions are mentioned. However, 
for here strings no exceptions are mentioned ("The WORD is expanded 
[...]]", but the WORD is at least not subject to pathname expansion:

$ cat <<< *
*

This is EITHER
(a) a documentation mistake OR
(b) a bug

Case (a) is clear, the exception is not mentioned.

Case (b) is also possible, because it COULD be intended to 
pathname-expand WORD:
(1) error out if pathname expansion results in more than one word OR
(2) use the first word of the result OR
(3) pass all results (as a special case)

I would expect the thing to either be (a) or (b)(2).

--
Be conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept from others.
- jbp, master of the net, in RFC793