Re: [Help-bash] The difference between $* and "$*"?

[Chet Ramey]

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On 2/3/14 8:59 AM, Eric Blake wrote:
> On 02/02/2014 01:58 PM, Chet Ramey wrote:
>> On 2/1/14, 1:58 PM, Seth David Schoen wrote:
>>> Peng Yu writes:
>>>>
>>>> I'm trying to understand the different between $* and "$*". The
>>>> following shows that they behave differently when IFS is not the
>>>> default. But the above paragraph from the manual does not explain
>>>> this. Could anybody let me know if this is documented somewhere else
>>>> in the manual and how to understand the difference? Thanks.
>>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> The difference is whether it "expands to a single word" or to multiple
>>> words.
>>
>> Would it help to add this sentence?
>>
>> "When not within double quotes, each positional parameter expands to a
>> separate word."
>>
>> It seems to me that that could have eliminated the confusion.
> 
> No, because that's not quite true.  Eliminating the quotes means that
> positional parameters are ALSO subject to word-splitting:

Sure.  It's not complete.  However, it would have eliminated the confusion
in this case.

And it's not just word splitting, it's pathname expansion as well -- just
like the output of any other unquoted word expansion.  The point is to
make the point that $* is, when unquoted, more like other word expansions
than the special double-quoted behavior the rest of the paragraph
describes.

Chet

- -- 
``The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.'' - Chaucer
                 ``Ars longa, vita brevis'' - Hippocrates
Chet Ramey, ITS, CWRU    address@hidden    http://cnswww.cns.cwru.edu/~chet/
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