Article View: comp.bugs.4bsd
Article #451$@ vs. $* (was - Re: nohup (from Bourne shell))
From: ECSC68 S Brown CS
Date: Sun, 07 Dec 1986 15:36
Date: Sun, 07 Dec 1986 15:36
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1925 bytes
In article <106@quacky.UUCP> dce@quacky.UUCP (David Elliott) writes:
>
>There is one slight problem with "$@", which can be shown by the following
>
> [... example of the wll-known "feature" ...]
>
>Anyway, the following statement can be used to fix this bug in most
>versions of sh.
>
> if (strcmp (as, "\"$@\"") == 0 && dolc == 0) {
> return(fixstak());
> }
>
>Add these to the beginning of the subroutine macro() in macro.c, and the
>bug goes away. It is somewhat kludgy, but it works.
>
However, if you fix this in your version of sh, it makes any shell-scripts
that you may write assuming the "fixed" behaviour inherently non-portable,
'cos they'll immediately bomb out on standard shells.
So, until the fix described above (or some equivalent thereof) is official,
its probably better just to be very careful when using $* or $@ in scripts.
One foolproof way is to always use ${1+"$@"} in place of $* or $@ or "$@"
- ok, its ugly, I know... :-)
--
Simon Brown
Department of Computer Science, University of Edinburgh, Scotland.
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"Life's distressing - that's no blessing". [Anon.]
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Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!utzoo!mnetor!seismo!mcvax!ukc!its63b!simon From: simon@its63b.ed.ac.uk (ECSC68 S Brown CS) Newsgroups: comp.bugs.4bsd,comp.unix.questions Subject: $@ vs. $* (was - Re: nohup (from Bourne shell)) Message-ID: <164@its63b.ed.ac.uk> Date: Sun, 7-Dec-86 10:36:52 EST Article-I.D.: its63b.164 Posted: Sun Dec 7 10:36:52 1986 Date-Received: Mon, 8-Dec-86 02:10:31 EST References: <181@haddock.UUCP> <106@quacky.UUCP> Reply-To: simon@its63b.ed.ac.uk (ECSC68 S Brown CS) Followup-To: comp.unix.questions Distribution: world Organization: I.T. School, Univ. of Edinburgh, U.K. Lines: 34 Keywords: sh, positional parameters