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boundary="------------7TLk0d4G8ymqD7mlPGyuKgbS" Message-id: <0fe90964-3fe9-4c08-a19b-267be086a78d@eastlink.ca> Date: Sat, 13 Apr 2024 17:19:51 -0700 MIME-version: 1.0 User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird Subject: Re: triviality regarding $# counts To: zsh-users@zsh.org References: <97793422-1543-4ba6-b52b-ff93eba03ab1@eastlink.ca> <7ba17739-6024-439b-a4a7-dd88fddfa2e4@eastlink.ca> <7333cf23-1fe7-4b3d-a7c1-f07697c5f062@eastlink.ca> <1e53a3f7-9bdb-45ae-81c7-7d0ec1a6a541@app.fastmail.com> <3cc19e86-e953-4e2f-9e57-30ff84f15fdf@eastlink.ca> Content-language: en-US From: Ray Andrews In-reply-to: X-Seq: 29812 Archived-At: X-Loop: zsh-users@zsh.org Errors-To: zsh-users-owner@zsh.org Precedence: list Precedence: bulk Sender: zsh-users-request@zsh.org X-no-archive: yes List-Id: List-Help: , List-Subscribe: , List-Unsubscribe: , List-Post: List-Owner: List-Archive: This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------7TLk0d4G8ymqD7mlPGyuKgbS Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit On 2024-04-13 13:53, Bart Schaefer wrote: > On Sat, Apr 13, 2024 at 8:14 AM Ray Andrews wrote: > In the beginning, there were only environment strings ($SHELL, $PATH, > etc.) and positional parameters ($1, $2, etc.). When a command was > run, it got its arguments as an "array" of positional parameters. > This is how "variables" came to be called "parameters" in shell > jargon. This mapped directly onto C main() argc ($#) and argv[] ($@) > with the phantom $0 as the name of the command. > Some might say it's esoteric trivia but I disagree.  When you elucidate the history, and the mapping onto C, things make more sense.  The shells had to grow organically, didn't they? --------------7TLk0d4G8ymqD7mlPGyuKgbS Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

On 2024-04-13 13:53, Bart Schaefer wrote:
On Sat, Apr 13, 2024 at 8:14 AM Ray Andrews <rayandrews@eastlink.ca> wrote:

In the beginning, there were only environment strings ($SHELL, $PATH,
etc.) and positional parameters ($1, $2, etc.).  When a command was
run, it got its arguments as an "array" of positional parameters.
This is how "variables" came to be called "parameters" in shell
jargon.  This mapped directly onto C main() argc ($#) and argv[] ($@)
with the phantom $0 as the name of the command.
Some might say it's esoteric trivia but I disagree.  When you elucidate the history, and the mapping onto C, things make more sense.  The shells had to grow organically, didn't they?

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