Re: docs: document zsh specialty with empty here-documents.

[Ralf Wildenhues]

Hi Gary and Eric,

* Eric Blake wrote on Mon, Sep 13, 2010 at 04:40:06PM CEST:
> On 09/12/2010 09:55 PM, Gary V. Vaughan wrote:
> >On 12 Sep 2010, at 23:41, Ralf Wildenhues wrote:
> >>    docs: document zsh specialty with empty here-documents.
> >>
> >>    * doc/autoconf.texi (Here-Documents): zsh 4.3.10 adds a newline
> >>    to empty here-docs.
[...]

> >Two colons in a sentence seems odd to me, and the English doesn't parse
> >well either.  How about:
> >
> >"Empty here-documents are not portable either; with the following code,
> >@command{zsh} 4.3.10 creates a file with a single newline, whereas other
> >shells create an empty file:"
> >
> >Also, is it really just that one micro release of zsh that has this
> >problem?  Or do you mean "since 4.3.10" or maybe "before 4.3.10" or
> >even "at least 4.3.10"?
> 
> I like "at least 4.3.10".  Okay with Gary's proposed wording changes.

Thanks for the reviews.  I'm pushing as below, hoping that's what you
intended.

I've reported a bug on http://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.shells.zsh.devel
but it hasn't shown up there yet.

Cheers,
Ralf

2010-09-13  Ralf Wildenhues  <address@hidden>
            Gary V. Vaughan <address@hidden>

        docs: document zsh specialty with empty here-documents.
        * doc/autoconf.texi (Here-Documents): zsh 4.3.10 adds a newline
        to empty here-docs.

diff --git a/doc/autoconf.texi b/doc/autoconf.texi
index f11f1dd..71eefa4 100644
--- a/doc/autoconf.texi
+++ b/doc/autoconf.texi
@@ -14897,6 +14897,15 @@ Here-Documents
 @samp{ksh93g} (1998-04-30) but as of 2006 many operating systems were
 still shipping older versions with the bug.
 
+Empty here-documents are not portable either; with the following code,
address@hidden up to at least version 4.3.10 creates a file with a single
+newline, whereas other shells create an empty file:
+
address@hidden
+cat >file <<EOF
+EOF
address@hidden example
+
 Many shells (including the Bourne shell) implement here-documents
 inefficiently.  In particular, some shells can be extremely inefficient when
 a single statement contains many here-documents.  For instance if your