This is with 4.2.5 on both Solaris and Linux (and I've reproduced with 4.3.2 on Linux). Someone at Sun filed this bug; I don't know how much y'all care. zsh -f < test_8 where test_8 is the attached file. I've got a couple more such files, all of which leave a core file with the same stack trace, FWIW. Danek