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From: chet@odin.INS.CWRU.Edu (Chet Ramey)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.shell,sublink.lang.shell
Subject: Re: Bourne Shell bug? Have a look..
Message-ID: <1991Jan16.152933.7288@usenet.ins.cwru.edu>
Date: 16 Jan 91 15:29:33 GMT
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Paolo Ventafridda writes:

$ Please have a look at this small program written in standard
$ Bourne shell:
$ 
$ :
$ set "one two three 4"
$ if [ "`echo $@ | grep '4'" != "" ]; then 
$ 	echo "Four"
$ fi
$ 
$ 
$ Now, notice that a      `    is missing in the "if" above!
$ It works without any problems all the same: on Xenix, SCO Unix,
$ 3B2, HP-UX and i guess on any bourne shell whose sources are
$ coming from at&t.
$ It seems that only BASH gets the error.

The `standard' AT&T Bourne shell will silently add a missing
closing delimiter when it hits EOF.  I don't think ksh does,
except maybe for sh compatibility; this was listed by Korn in
his book as one of the differences between ksh and sh.  Bash
doesn't either. 

Chet

-- 
Chet Ramey				``There's just no surf in
Network Services Group			  Cleveland, U.S.A. ...''
Case Western Reserve University
chet@ins.CWRU.Edu		My opinions are just those, and mine alone.