Re: uninvited members of associative array

[Ray Andrews <rayandrews@eastlink.ca>]

On 2022-12-16 13:15, Dominik Vogt wrote:
>
> But variables are not even a real part of the shell, the shell
> script or its data.  Every process has an associated environment
> that consists of "key=value" pairs.  The parameter syntax in the
> shell is just a way to manipulate the environment that is then
> passed to the started processes.  The environment exists
> independently of the shell.

Sure, but the shell manipulates that environment, which is what we want 
it to do.  And the various expansions are surely entirely zsh's own 
doing.  I don't think there's anything to disagree about really.  I do 
take your point tho.  zsh is not comparable to, say, C.  At first I 
thought it would be and it took a while to beat that out of me.

To begin with, the shell does not even have a fixed syntax that
> could be written down in a rule book:
I've noticed!  The parser code must be formidable.
> Then, the commands that the shell runs are mostly not defined by
> the shell but externally.  You'd probably describe the script
>
>    ls .
>    rm -f foobarbaz
>
> as "a program that lists non-hidden entries of the current
> directory and then removes the entry foobarbaz if it exists and is
> not a directory".  But that is not true.  What the script really
> does is "execute a program 'ls' with argument '.', then execute a
> program 'rm' with arguments '-f' 'foobarbaz'".  What the called
> programs do is not part of the shell.  So, unless you want to
> define the program as a sequence of "execute X with arguments Y1
> ... Yn" the shell really doesn't do anything close to what the
> "program" is supposed to do.

I understand.  The shell is for interacting with command line binaries 
and friends.  But it's internal power is such that it can get a whole 
lot done.  I remember in C when you had to call an external program it 
was ... 'unnatural', but of course zsh is exactly the opposite -- it is 
a facilitator of external programs.