On 2024-01-05 11:58, Bart Schaefer wrote:
> Approximately so, yes.  Not precisely so in the case of nested expansions.
Close will count for now.
> Only with respect to pattern characters, but yes.

Ah, so this behavior is special.  Is there some way to watch the parsing 
unfold?

If I could see what happened, step by step it could sure be useful.  
Seems to me

I remember someone showed how.  'set +x' isn't detailed enough.

> It was in fact one of the primary reasons for the creation of zsh in
> the first place, to make the behavior of parameter expansions more
> consistent without always having to use double quotes around them.
Yes,   I know that historically zsh was a design fix.
>
>    setopt glob_subst
>    print -- ${~~asterisk}
> does exactly that.

Cool.  Manual mentions that, but now it makes sense.

Tx.