From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from euclid.skiles.gatech.edu (euclid.skiles.gatech.edu [130.207.146.50]) by werple.net.au (8.7/8.7.1) with ESMTP id RAA13867 for ; Sun, 7 Jan 1996 17:00:14 +1100 (EST) Received: (from list@localhost) by euclid.skiles.gatech.edu (8.7.3/8.7.3) id AAA15813; Sun, 7 Jan 1996 00:33:17 -0500 (EST) Resent-Date: Sun, 7 Jan 1996 00:33:17 -0500 (EST) From: Zefram Message-Id: <8140.199601070532@upwind.dcs.warwick.ac.uk> Subject: Re: Hi. Installed on FreeBSD 2.1 To: mike@calypso.bns.com.au (Michael Talbot-Wilson) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 1996 05:32:52 +0000 (GMT) Cc: zsh-workers@math.gatech.edu In-Reply-To: from "Michael Talbot-Wilson" at Jan 7, 96 03:54:03 pm X-Loop: zefram@dcs.warwick.ac.uk X-Stardate: [-31]6861.15 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Resent-Message-ID: <"qmYkx3.0._s3.Tirxm"@euclid> Resent-From: zsh-workers@math.gatech.edu X-Mailing-List: archive/latest/716 X-Loop: zsh-workers@math.gatech.edu Precedence: list Resent-Sender: zsh-workers-request@math.gatech.edu > $ ls -l -F # okay > $ A='-l' > $ ls $A -F # okay > $ B='-l -F' > $ ls $B # error > # BSD ls: "illegal option --" > # GNU ls: "invalid option --" You obviously don't have the SH_WORD_SPLIT option set. Normally, Bourne shells will perform word splitting on the result of parameter expansions, as you rely on here, but zsh doesn't do that by default. Apart from turning on the option, there are two possible solutions: B=(-l -F) ls $B B='-d -F' ls $=B -zefram