From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
Return-Path: <zsh-workers-return-5935-mason-zsh=primenet.com.au@sunsite.auc.dk>
Received: (qmail 5798 invoked from network); 25 Mar 1999 12:03:11 -0000
Received: from sunsite.auc.dk (130.225.51.30)
  by ns1.primenet.com.au with SMTP; 25 Mar 1999 12:03:11 -0000
Received: (qmail 20791 invoked by alias); 25 Mar 1999 12:02:51 -0000
Mailing-List: contact zsh-workers-help@sunsite.auc.dk; run by ezmlm
Precedence: bulk
X-No-Archive: yes
X-Seq: 5935
Received: (qmail 20783 invoked from network); 25 Mar 1999 12:02:44 -0000
From: "Andrej Borsenkow" <borsenkow.msk@sni.de>
To: "Sven Wischnowsky" <wischnow@informatik.hu-berlin.de>,
        <zsh-workers@sunsite.auc.dk>
Subject: ${...:-...} again and subst clarification E: PATCH: param stuff and was: PATCH: 3.1.5-pws-12: _brace_parameter
Date: Thu, 25 Mar 1999 15:00:06 +0300
Message-ID: <002201be76b7$063c9940$21c9ca95@mowp.siemens.ru>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain;
	charset="koi8-r"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-Priority: 3 (Normal)
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2910.0)
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2014.211
In-Reply-To: <199903161150.MAA25602@beta.informatik.hu-berlin.de>
Importance: Normal

> > >
> > >   1) let it treat the `bar' always as a string (i.e. let it never be
> > >      split into array elements); I guess this is what most people
> > >      would expect (and in the manual the thing is called `word')
> >

I just found, that ${...:-...} does not work with arrays at all

bor@itsrm2:~%> foo=()
bor@itsrm2:~%> bar=(c d)
bor@itsrm2:~%> args ${foo:-${bar}}
0
bor@itsrm2:~%> args ${foo-${bar}}
0

If this was intended, then this change is really O.K and does the right
thing. But then, it should explicitly be mentioned in manuals.

The same applies to words after %, #, /, = (without (A)) and to val in
FOO=val as well. In all these contexts array value is forced (joined) to
scalar. May be, it is needed to be explicitly stated as well (to avoid
confusion). ${...=...} case is mentioned - but, probably, it would be better
to have them explained in rules in the correct place - even more so, as the
way it is done is again inconsistent:

bor@itsrm2:~%> setopt shwordsplit
bor@itsrm2:~%> IFS="$IFS:"
bor@itsrm2:~%> foo=("x:y" "a:b")
bor@itsrm2:~%> bar=$foo
bor@itsrm2:~%> print "$bar"
x:y a:b

No word splitting. The same applies to #, % and /.

bor@itsrm2:~%> yyy=${xxx:-$foo}
bor@itsrm2:~%> print "$yyy"
x y a b

$foo is wordsplitted. the same with =.

cheers

/andrej