Re: [Help-bash] Simple echo is printing the wrong value

[DJ Mills]

On Thu, Apr 5, 2012 at 6:49 PM, Bob Proulx <address@hidden> wrote:
> Bill Gradwohl wrote:
>
> For example '[ ... ]' versus '[[ ... ]]'.  That will be your first
> homework assignment.  Which of those are external and which of those
> are external?  Hint: Use of 'type -a' is useful to help with this.
> Does knowing this explain why one is doing word splitting, file
> globbing, and other parameter actions that need quoting to prevent
> while the other one doesn't?
>
> Bob
>

The term you're looking for in "type" output is actually "shell
keyword", not just "shell builtin". Keywords like if, case, and [[
actually change the way bash parses the line. Regular builtins do not,
they're treated just like any other command.