[comp.bugs.4bsd] $@ vs. $*

simon@its63b.ed.ac.uk (ECSC68 S Brown CS) (12/07/86)

In article <106@quacky.UUCP> dce@quacky.UUCP (David Elliott) writes:
>
>There is one slight problem with "$@", which can be shown by the following
>
>	[... example of the wll-known "feature" ...]
>
>Anyway, the following statement can be used to fix this bug in most
>versions of sh.
>
>	if (strcmp (as, "\"$@\"") == 0 && dolc == 0) {
>		return(fixstak());
>	}
>
>Add these to the beginning of the subroutine macro() in macro.c, and the
>bug goes away. It is somewhat kludgy, but it works.
>

However, if you fix this in your version of sh, it makes any shell-scripts
that you may write assuming the "fixed" behaviour inherently non-portable,
'cos they'll immediately bomb out on standard shells.

So, until the fix described above (or some equivalent thereof) is official,
its probably better just to be very careful when using $* or $@ in scripts.
One foolproof way is to always use ${1+"$@"} in place of $* or $@ or "$@"
- ok, its ugly, I know... :-)


--
Simon Brown
Department of Computer Science, University of Edinburgh, Scotland.

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"Life's distressing - that's no blessing". [Anon.]
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