Fw: Arithmetic expressions and parameters with newlines breaks

[Jan Schampera]

Begin forwarded message:

Date: Mon, 2 Jul 2007 18:32:49 +0200
From: Jan Schampera <jan.schampera@web.de>
To: bob@proulx.com (Bob Proulx)
Subject: Re: Arithmetic expressions and parameters with newlines breaks


On Mon, 2 Jul 2007 10:08:08 -0600
bob@proulx.com (Bob Proulx) wrote:

> What behavior did you expect to see when the evaluated expression
> contained whitespace?  What would you expect from "12 34"?  It is not
> a number.  It is two numbers.  There is no operator between them such
> as "12 + 34" or other.
> 
> What other result than a syntax error is possible here?

Hi Bob,

thanks for your reply!

Well, I guess intuitively expected that it evaluates to 0, like for
example:

$ test=string
$ echo $((test))
0

But I just made some experiments (which I should have done before) and
read the manual again a bit closer: In this example I really reference
the variable "string" (as designated operand) which is unset/null and
thus evaluates to 0.

I also saw this can be done in any depth.

So, excuse my wrong interpretion of the manual (maybe that needs to be
marked extra by a sentence or a half in manual). It's definitely not a
bug (it is - between screen and chair!).

Best regards and thanks again for quick reply,
Jan