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From: al@mot.UUCP (Al Filipski)
Newsgroups: net.unix
Subject: Re: "set" question for Bourne shell scripts
Message-ID: <109@mot.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 21-Feb-85 19:17:25 EST
Article-I.D.: mot.109
Posted: Thu Feb 21 19:17:25 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 26-Feb-85 20:43:10 EST
References: <661@turtlevax.UUCP> <70@timeb.UUCP>, <494@rlgvax.UUCP>
Organization: Motorola Microsystems, Phoenix AZ
Lines: 25

>> > The Bourne shell allows you to set the positional parameters with:
>> > 	set a b c d e
>> > Now, my question is, how do you remove all parameters, i.e. set $# to 0?
>> 
>> Try 'unset *'. Should work.
>
>I did try it with the System III shell; it said:
>
>	unset: not found
>
>"unset" must have been added in System V Release 1.0 or 2.0.
>
>
unset was added in V.2.  You can remove named shell variables with it.
There may be a way to remove positional parameters with it, but
'unset *' doesn't work on our system (doesn't the shell expand the * 
into filenames?).  someone pointed out that the other solution posted 
(shift $#) doesn't work under 4.1 when $# is already 0.  It works fine 
under V.2.

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Alan Filipski, UNIX group, Motorola Microsystems, Tempe, AZ U.S.A
{seismo | ihnp4 } ! ut-sally ! oakhill ! mot ! al
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May the peace of Landru be with you.