Re: Word splitting for $@ in variable assignment

[Robert Elz]

    Date:        Thu, 24 Jun 2021 21:03:22 -0400
    From:        Greg Wooledge <greg@wooledge.org>
    Message-ID:  <YNUrWhiXULc6zEsb@wooledge.org>

  | Bash is ALL about these special cases.  If you don't like it, don't write
  | code that uses it.  In any sensible programming language, var="$@"
  | would have been an error.  In bash, it's not.  But that doesn't mean
  | you have to *write* it.

It isn't bash, it is Bourne sh (of which bash is an implementation, with
extensions) - there are two distinct contexts where expansions happen - one
where multiple words are expected (pathname expansions etc happen) and the
other where only one word is rational.

The rules are different for the two cases.   "$@" is simply "$*" in the
latter case (so you're right, it is kind of dumb to write it, and
simply creates confusion).

I would however never call what "$@" does (in the former case) "word
splitting", that isn't what happens at all, nothing is ever split, there
are simply some number ($#) of input words, which are individually quoted
and inserted in whatever list is being created.   This one is really a
very simple thing to understand, it is all of the other $@ and $* expansions
that are the weird(er) ones.

kre

ps: "word" above is in the sh syntax meaning, nothing to do with
natural language words.