Re: Bug#480889: zcompiling messes with alias-in-function expansion

Re: Bug#480889: zcompiling messes with alias-in-function expansion

[Clint Adams]

I imagine that this is somehow related to

alias foo='echo bar'; foo

On Mon, May 12, 2008 at 03:55:09PM +0100, martin f krafft wrote:
> % cat <<_eof > foo
> alias foo='echo bar'
> fn() { foo }
> foo
> which foo
> _eof
> % . ./foo
> bar
> foo: aliased to echo bar
> % unalias foo; unfunction fn
> % zcompile foo
> % . ./foo
> ./foo:3: command not found: foo
> foo: aliased to echo bar
> 
> 
> OUCH!

Re: Bug#480889: zcompiling messes with alias-in-function expansion

[Peter Stephenson]

Clint Adams wrote:
> I imagine that this is somehow related to
> 
> alias foo='echo bar'; foo

Right, it's the same problem.  Aliases are expanded early on, during
input, and so you can't use an alias within the same chunk of shell code
as where it's defined.  This isn't going to change; you need to find a
workaround.  The standard approach is to use functions in such chunks of
code.  Aliases tend to be regarded as largely an interactive feature.

This ought to be documented somewhere, if it isn't.

-- 
Peter Stephenson <pws@csr.com>                  Software Engineer
CSR PLC, Churchill House, Cambridge Business Park, Cowley Road
Cambridge, CB4 0WZ, UK                          Tel: +44 (0)1223 692070