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Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 13:23:51 -0800
From: Danek Duvall <duvall@comfychair.org>
To: Zsh users list <zsh-users@sunsite.dk>
Subject: Re: egrep with zsh as /bin/sh - wordsplitting
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References: <2005-01-13T17-30-35@devnull.michael-prokop.at>
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On Thu, Jan 13, 2005 at 09:50:18PM +0100, Michael Prokop wrote:

> Why does the original egrep version use ${1+"$@"} and not
> "$@" or "${1+"$@"}"?

My understanding is that if you write "$@", then with no arguments, in some
shells it becomes "" (i.e., an argument, but with no length), and that's
not actually what you want.  ${1+"$@"} only adds something if there are any
arguments.

I don't know if this is a problem on any modern shell, though.

Danek