locally declared arrays do not act as arrays

[Andrew Stitt]

Configuration Information [Automatically generated, do not change]:
Machine: i686
OS: linux-gnu
Compiler: gcc
Compilation CFLAGS:  -DPROGRAM='bash' -DCONF_HOSTTYPE='i686' 
-DCONF_OSTYPE='linux-gnu' -DCONF_MACHTYPE='i686-pc-linux-gnu' 
-DCONF_VENDOR='pc' -DLOCALEDIR='/usr/share/locale' -DPACKAGE='bash' -DSHELL 
-DHAVE_CONFIG_H  -I.  -I. -I./include -I./lib   -O -march=pentium-m -mmmx 
-mfpmath=sse -msse2 -pipe -ffast-math -funroll-loops -O3
uname output: Linux courier 2.6.11 #6 Sun May 8 23:59:20 PDT 2005 i686 unknown 
unknown GNU/Linux
Machine Type: i686-pc-linux-gnu

Bash Version: 3.0
Patch Level: 16
Release Status: release

Description:
when I declare a local variable as an array it still acts as a scalar,
not as an array.

I discovered that if I seperate the local declaration from the
initialization, the variable properly acts as an array.

Repeat-By:

f() {
  local B=("a" "b")
  echo $B
  C=("a" "b")
  echo $C
}
A=("a" "b")
echo $A
f

Produces:
a
(a b)
a

Workaround:
split the declaration and initialization:
local B
B=("a" "b")