Chet, thanks for the clarification So the answer is - this is by design, i.e. as soon as you use a variable for the FD, you are responsible of managing it for the duration of its life.
Knowing this makes it much more "reliable" to use ;-) I also could not find the relevant info on the list / web, so I was really starting to think this was a bug. Maybe the "REDIRECTION" section of the BASH man page would be a good spot to mention this? Thanks to all for answering my questions, Math. On Thu, Jan 28, 2016 at 1:33 PM, Chet Ramey <chet.ra...@case.edu> wrote: > On 1/27/16 1:18 PM, Mathieu Patenaude wrote: > > Hi, > > > > When using "named" file descriptors inside a function, the file > descriptors > > are not automatically un-linked when the function returns, but when using > > regular "numbered" file descriptors they are automatically "destroyed". > > Yes. That's the intent. The idea is that if you assign a variable, you > have a `handle' on the file descriptor and can manage it yourself. It's > closer to how open(2) works: the system selects a descriptor and tells you > what it is, and it's up to you to track it from there. > > In that sense, variables assigned by redirections are similar to how > `exec' makes redirections persist beyond a single command. > > (I thought this had come up before, but I couldn't find that particular > discussion.) > > Chet > > -- > ``The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.'' - Chaucer > ``Ars longa, vita brevis'' - Hippocrates > Chet Ramey, ITS, CWRU c...@case.edu > http://cnswww.cns.cwru.edu/~chet/ >
