On 12/12/21 2:47 PM, l.bash...@scarydevilmonastery.net wrote: > Bash Version: 5.1 > Patch Level: 12 > Release Status: release > > Description: > making left square bracket char ([) part of the key into a hash causes > unset to silently fail when trying to unset that specific hash item. > The position of left square bracket char in the string used as key > doesn't > matter. unset also fails when the key is a single [ character. > Please refer to the following script which attempts to demonstrate this > quirk.
Thanks for the report. This has been discussed a number of times in the past, most recently as part of a long thread about reworking array expansion in general and `unset' in particular: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bash/2021-03/msg00056.html (the thread extends into April: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bash/2021-04/msg00008.html) In this case, the `assoc_expand_once' option does not help; even the successive layers of quoting don't prevent the `]' from being considered the end of the subscript, complicated by the fact that the argument to `unset' undergoes a set of word expansions before unset even sees it. The general workaround for this is to store the key in a variable and rely on the variable expansion to produce the right subscript without the `]' being mistaken for the subscript terminator. As a result of the discussion from March/April, the devel branch uses a different strategy that results in the `unset' working in all of the examples where the argument can be recognized as a valid array subscript reference before it's expanded, and all the other examples you gave except the ones that leave the `]' unquoted (the reason for which should be easy to figure out). Chet -- ``The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.'' - Chaucer ``Ars longa, vita brevis'' - Hippocrates Chet Ramey, UTech, CWRU c...@case.edu http://tiswww.cwru.edu/~chet/
