Re: Incorrect alias expansion within command substitution

[L A Walsh]

On 2022/02/03 11:02, Chet Ramey wrote:
> On 2/2/22 10:18 PM, Robert Elz wrote:
>   
> >      Date:        Wed, 02 Feb 2022 17:18:08 -0800
> >      From:        L A Walsh <bash@tlinx.org>
> >      Message-ID:  <61FB2D50.7010403@tlinx.org>
> >
> >    | My posix non-conformance issue has to do with bash not starting with
> >    | aliases enabled by default in all default invocations.
> >
> > If you're using aliases in scripts, then just stop doing that.
> > There's no need for it, it just makes your script harder to
> > follow.  Simply expand any aliases you"d use interactively,
> > and you will no longer care about this.
> >     
>
> There's no problem with using aliases in private scripts you write for your
> own purposes.
Going against the POSIX standard in enabling aliases on startup would be no
problem if it was in your private shell for your own purposes...
>  If you want to impose some personal style you find easier to
> read, so be it. Even advocating for that style is ok, if you don't expect to be 
> taken seriously unless you provide evidence of concrete benefits.
>   
---
   If you want to impose your personal bash startup options on the general
shell used by default on most systems, so be it.  But please don't
expect to be taken seriously when you arbitrarily disable default
posix options at startup unless you provide evidence of concrete benefits.

   In a similar way when one does a 'read var < fn' and you decide to add
a warning if 'fn' ended with a binary '0', that would be fine if it only 
affected
you, but you added the warning claiming it was solving some problem 
complained about
by some users.  When I asked for concrete evidence of benefits or the 
large number
of users askign for that, I was attacked.  Yet you ask to be taken 
seriously when
you implement changes that no one had asked for on bug-bash.

> The issue is expecting others to understand or be able to help with scripts
> written in that style, or expect them to invest time learning it. That's
> just not reasonable.  

If you are claiming it takes them significant time to learn what:


shopt -s expand_aliases; alias int='declare -i '
means, How do you expect them to learn shell basics from 'man bash'?

More than one person has commented the level of clarity of bash 
documentation.

I've have yet to find someone who doesn't understand what
'int var=1' means.

Documentation that has confused more than one poster on this list
is hardly a standard one should aspire to.  It is, at best, 'terse'.

versus my alias usage that attempts to improve clarity.