Eric Blake wrote> On 08/04/2010 09:18 AM, John Lumby wrote:
> 
> > 
> > Re the statement
> > 
> >     since "$e" is quoted, it must not be elided
> > 
> > I don't think that is correct.   In fact "$e" *must* be elided  -
> >  because you juxtaposed it with the next token.    eliding and quoting are orthogonal.
>  
> Your statement is confusing to me.  Here, in more detail, is exactly
> what I meant (and what I though I implied in the first case):
>  
>  ...
>  
> Because "$e" is quoted, the resulting empty string must not be elided
> during word splitting.
>

I see -   thanks.   I was not aware of that effect of quoting.
But I see you are correct.

>  
>  ...
>  
> Why do you find that interesting?  There is NO word splitting in
> assignment contexts, so the effect of

Again I stand corrected,   thanks.  I thought an unquoted blank would terminate an assignment value.
Maybe I was confusing tokenization before substitution with word splitting after substitution.