On 10/14/23 12:46 AM, Martin D Kealey wrote:
Respectfully I must disagree.
This aspect of Bash's behaviour has a very long historical precedent.
Back when I used the Bourne Shell we didn't have `local`, so we used to
write `var= func` to make sure that `func` couldn't mess with *our* `var`.
This is a POSIX special builtin, so the desire for a local variable is the
same, but with a special twist that makes it not work. In that case, the
variable assignment is required to propagate to the shell global variable
table, as if
VAR=outside . filename
were
VAR=outside; . filename
That isn't the same with a non-special builtin like `alias'.
Bash doesn't treat the so-called special builtins any differently unless
it's in posix mode.
--
``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/
