Re: Arithmetic expansion with increments and output redirection

[Ilkka Virta]

On 24.4. 16:37, Chet Ramey wrote:
> "Utilities other than the special built-ins (see Special Built-In
> Utilities) shall be invoked in a separate environment that consists of the
> following...[includes redirections specified to the utility]...

It does say

"Open files inherited on invocation of the shell, open files controlled 
by the exec special built-in plus any modifications, and additions 
specified by any redirections to the utility"

which could also be read to apply only the open files themselves, not 
the byproducts of finding out their names.

> The
> environment of the shell process shall not be changed by the utility"

It's not the utility that changes the environment when processing the 
expansion, but the shell itself, isn't it?

- -

Anyway, as little as it's worth, Zsh seems to do it the same way Bash 
does, all others leave the changed value visible.

 $ for shell in 'busybox sh' dash yash ksh93 mksh bash zsh; do $shell -c
   'i=1; /bin/echo foo > $(( i += 1 )); printf "%-15s %s\n" "$1:" "$i";'
   sh "$shell"; done
 busybox sh:     2
 dash:           2
 yash:           2
 ksh93:          2
 mksh:           2
 bash:           1
 zsh:            1


I also did find the Bash/Zsh behaviour a bit surprising. But I'm not 
sure it matters other than here and with stuff like $BASHPID? It's easy 
to work around here by splitting the increment/decrement to a separate line:

 /bin/echo foo > "$i"
 : "$(( i += 1 ))"

Some find that easier to read, too: the increment isn't "hidden" within 
the other stuff on the command line.


--
Ilkka Virta / itvirta@iki.fi