Re: Incorrect alias expansion within command substitution

[Chet Ramey]

On 2/3/22 3:23 PM, L A Walsh wrote:

>     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. 

You're misremembering this, unsurprisingly. The thing I think you're
complaining about is here:

https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bash/2016-09/msg00015.html

and consists of bash-4.4 adding a warning when it stripped NUL bytes from
the results of command substitution (which it had done, silently, for quite
a long time). There's a sample bug report that prompted the change in one
of my messages in that thread.

You did complain bitterly about this at the time, that is true, comparing
it to "literally putting salt in the wound." But I don't think you were
"attacked."

> Yet you ask to be taken 
> seriously when
> you implement changes that no one had asked for on bug-bash.

You're free not to take me seriously.

I wouldn't assume that every bug report or question comes in on bug-bash,
though.

> How do you expect them to learn shell basics from 'man bash'?

I don't, to be honest. It's a reference manual, not a tutorial. It tells
you what the shell does, not how to learn to program in it or use it
interactively.

If you want a tutorial on how to use bash, or an introduction to getting
started with bash, there are literally hundreds of books that can satisfy
your desire. The texinfo manual is better suited for that, but it's not a
tutorial either. If someone wants to write a tutorial and donate it to the
FSF, I'm sure they would gratefully accept it. Otherwise, if you want one
to come for free with the bash distribution, you'll have to wait until I
get around to writing one.


> 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.

Yes, look at these two things, which are not comparable.

--
``The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.'' - Chaucer
                 ``Ars longa, vita brevis'' - Hippocrates
Chet Ramey, UTech, CWRU    chet@case.edu    http://tiswww.cwru.edu/~chet/