Hi GNU, There appears to be a logical bug in the Bash Manual <http://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/bash.html#Definitions>.
It claims that an operator is: "a control operator or a redirection operator. [...] Operators contain at > least one unquoted metacharacter." Neat! It also says that a metacharacter "is a blank or one of the following characters: ‘|’, ‘&’, ‘;’, ‘(’, ‘)’, ‘<’, or ‘>’." Performing parameter expansion on blank, we see the definition is most completely: "a space or tab character or one of the following characters: ‘|’, ‘&’, ‘;’, > ‘(’, ‘)’, ‘<’, or ‘>’." This creates a problem with the definition of control operator, which is "a newline or one of the following: ‘||’, ‘&&’, ‘&’, ‘;’, ‘;;’, ‘|’, ‘|&’, ‘ > (’, or ‘)’". In short, the definition of operator incorrectly implies that, because newline is a control operator, newline is also a metacharacter. A proper fix could be to change the definition of operator to be "a control operator or a redirection operator. [...] Operators contain at least one unquoted metacharacter or an unquoted newline character." Thanks for your time, George Gallo
