On Wed, Jan 25, 2023 at 3:48 PM Bart Schaefer <schaefer@brasslantern.com> wrote:
>
> The value being assigned to the variable is coming from $1=${(P)1} and
> ${(P)1} includes the specified justification, so the value assigned is
> always already the correct width.

Which means ${(P)#1} is the justification, no need to fork typeset for
that, and ...

> Is there any other way to reference
> the "real, unfilled" value of a parameter that has justification
> specified?

The only reliable way I can find is to first remove the justification:

% typeset -L5 FOO=123456789
% printf "<%s>\n" $FOO
<12345>
% typeset +L FOO
% printf "<%s>\n" $FOO
<123456789>

This can be done without otherwise changing the type or tied-ness of the scalar.

One more pass at it attached.