From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 22305 invoked from network); 15 Feb 1999 17:40:46 -0000 Received: from sunsite.auc.dk (130.225.51.30) by ns1.primenet.com.au with SMTP; 15 Feb 1999 17:40:46 -0000 Received: (qmail 9660 invoked by alias); 15 Feb 1999 17:39:08 -0000 Mailing-List: contact zsh-users-help@sunsite.auc.dk; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk X-No-Archive: yes X-Seq: 2157 Received: (qmail 9645 invoked from network); 15 Feb 1999 17:38:53 -0000 Message-Id: <9902151723.AA56829@ibmth.df.unipi.it> To: zsh-users@sunsite.auc.dk (Zsh users list) Subject: MAGIC_EQUAL_SUBST Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 18:23:01 +0100 From: Peter Stephenson I'd like to change the behaviour of the shell option MAGIC_EQUAL_SUBST in a way which I think will make it more comprehensible and so useful, but I'd like to check no-one is relying on the old behaviour. The option is supposed to make arguments looking like assignments get ~ and = substitution, just like a real assignment would (the argument is still otherwise a normal command argument, however). The current behaviour is: % unsetopt magicequalsubst % print foo=~/a:~/b --foo=~/a foo=~/a:~/b --foo=~/a:~/b % setopt magicequalsubst % print foo=~/a:~/b --foo=~/a foo=/home/user2/pws/a:/home/user2/pws/b --foo=~/a The special behaviour only happens when the first thing looks like a variable name. This was my idea and I think I got it wrong: the shell shouldn't second guess what an assignment for an external program looks like. So I'd like to alter it to make it more consistent --- this only affects the behaviour with the option set, of course: % print foo=~/a:~/b --foo=~/a foo=/home/user2/pws/a:/home/user2/pws/b --foo=/home/user2/pws/a This will make it useful in things like `./configure --prefix=~' which I should probably have thought about originally. Is anyone likely to be upset by such a change? -- Peter Stephenson Tel: +39 050 844536 WWW: http://www.ifh.de/~pws/ Dipartimento di Fisica, Via Buonarroti 2, 56127 Pisa, Italy