On Fri, Feb 12, 2016 at 02:45:23PM +0100, Ulrich Windl wrote:
> I realized that ":-2" is ambiguous: Default value or substring? A SPC does
> disambiguate (now I know). I still wonder why the manual page does not change
> "${parameter:offset}" and "${parameter:offset:length}" to "${parameter:
> offset}" and "${parameter: offset:length}", respectively. Or change the
> wording of "If offset evaluates to a number less than zero" to "If offset
> evaluates to a number less than zero AND begins with a space"
Gah, long lines.
The man page says:
If offset evaluates to a number less than zero, the value is used
as an offset in characters from the end of the value of
parameter. If length evaluates to a number less than zero, it is
interpreted as an offset in characters from the end of the value
of parameter rather than a number of characters, and the
expansion is the characters between offset and that result. Note
that a negative offset must be separated from the colon by at
least one space to avoid being confused with the :- expansion.
Either that last sentence wasn't present in the 4.2 man page, or you
simply missed it.
