Re: unwanted expansion of variable with nested strings

[Mike Frysinger]

On Thursday 04 May 2006 00:44, Paul Jarc wrote:
> Mike Frysinger <vapier@gentoo.org> wrote:
> > $ foo="a b c"
> > $ gawk 'BEGIN {foo="'${foo}'"}'
> > gawk: BEGIN {foo="a
> > gawk:            ^ unterminated string
>
> This is normal.  man bash:
>
> #   Word Splitting
> #       The  shell  scans the results of parameter expansion, command
> substitu- #       tion, and arithmetic expansion that did not occur within
> double  quotes #       for word splitting.

thanks, this is the bit i was unable to locate myself

> > so if i quote ${foo} like so:
> > $ gawk 'BEGIN {foo="'"${foo}"'"}'
> > it'll work in this case, but then fail if foo contains newlines:
> > foo="a
> > b
> > c"
>
> What do you mean by "fail"?  What do you want to happen in this case?

i meant gawk hates it ... not bash
-mike