-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 According to Doug McIlroy on 3/7/2008 7:17 PM: | These two bash sequences are not equivalent. | My intuition and the bash man page tell me they should be the same. | | % export X=x; time --version; unset X | -bash: --version: command not found | | % unset X; X=x time --version | GNU time 1.7
Thanks for the report. However, I don't think this is a bug. On many platforms, time is both a bash reserved word, as well as a binary application. POSIX states this as an informative note: "In the KornShell, time is a shell reserved word that can be used to time an entire pipeline, rather than just a simple command. The POSIX definition has been worded to allow this implementation." The difference in behavior is because this is the implementation that bash chose - unlike all other bash builtins (which are not reserved words), time is recognized as the bash version ONLY if it is the first word of a simple command; using a variable assignment bypasses the reserved word recognition and defers to the binary application. Try these unset X; time X=x --version export X=x; /bin/time --version; unset X for comparison. - -- Don't work too hard, make some time for fun as well! Eric Blake [EMAIL PROTECTED] -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (Cygwin) Comment: Public key at home.comcast.net/~ericblake/eblake.gpg Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFH0goS84KuGfSFAYARAiXJAKDCwLAGNxEReoh3cnFufAeZLnQT6ACgxexq MBpXAs0R5DQ3+EFaSH/Hkc0= =nb0e -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
