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From: ZyX <kp-pav@yandex.ru>
To: Georg Wittig <nc-wittigge@netcologne.de>,
	"zsh-users@zsh.org" <zsh-users@zsh.org>
In-Reply-To: <55C68669.8000408@netcologne.de>
References: <55C68669.8000408@netcologne.de>
Subject: Re: Global And Local Variables in zsh Functions
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Date: Sun, 09 Aug 2015 03:26:33 +0300
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09.08.2015, 01:46, "Georg Wittig" <nc-wittigge@netcologne.de>:
> Hi,
>
> I'm writing a zsh script that's constructing a rather complex rsync
> command. One part of the script is constructing a list of exclude
> commands for rsync. For this I use a global variable EXC. It is built
> in the following way
>
> EXC=''
> function my_f1 () {
> ššEXC+=" --exclude='$1'";
> }
> my_f1 /tmp
> my_f1 /opt/windows7

Here you run my_f1 in the current shell.

> echo ">>>$EXC<<<"
>
> Function my_f1 does a lot of other things that are not relevant in
> this context. The output of that script snippet is
>
>>>> š--exclude='/tmp' --exclude='/opt/windows7'<<<
>
> which is exactly what I want.
>
> Now I need that function my_f1 return another value that depends on
> it's input parameter. So I rewrote my_f1 to my_f2 which looks as follows
>
> EXC=''
> function my_f2 () {
> ššššEXC+=" --exclude='$1'";
> ššššlocal x="some value depending on $1"
> ššššecho $x
> }
> x1=$(my_f2 /tmp)
> x2=$(my_f2 /opt/windows7)

And here you do it in the subshell.

> echo ">>>$EXC<<<"

And then try to use $EXC modified separately two times in two different subshells in a parent shell. Of course, this does not work.

>
> To my surprise, EXC is empty now: The output is
>
>>>> <<<
>
> Why is EXC empty in the case of my_f2, and correct in the case my_f1?
> Exists there an influence of the local variable x, or is the culprit
> the way that my_f2 returns it's value to the calling point? How do I
> rewrite my_f2 such that the value of EXC is correct?

You must not use subshells: in this case $(). Use variable for return.

Note: you may define a local variable and modify it in the called function:

    function foo() {
        REPLY="some value depending on $1"
    }
    REPLY=Test
    () {
        local REPLY
        foo Test
        echo $REPLY  # Will echo "some value depending on Test"
    }
    echo $REPLY  # Will echo "Test"

Note: REPLY is not a random name, it is rather common idiom. Search `man zshall` for the `reply` and `REPLY` variables.

>
> Thanks for your hints,
> ššššš--Georg
>
> [zsh-5.0.8-5.fc22.x86_64]