Re: 4.4 change in behavior from 4.3: how to catch unset when using ${#length}

[Chet Ramey]

On 10/24/16 7:32 PM, L. A. Walsh wrote:

>    I don't understand the ambiguity.  If param= "#obj[@]", then it
> is clear to me that the user wants the length of an array named "obj".

Stop there.  In something like ${#obj[@]}, `param' is `obj[@]'.  The
`${#param}' is a clearly-defined word expansion, separate from the
`[:]-' forms:

http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/V3_chap02.html#tag_18_06_02

That's what we're talking about here.

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