Re: weird ksh eval behavior

[Otto Moerbeek]

On Thu, 1 Dec 2005, Matthias Kilian wrote:

> On Thu, Dec 01, 2005 at 08:43:31PM +0100, Ralf Wildenhues wrote:
> > With ash-0.3.8, OpenBSD 3.8 'sh' and 'ksh' PD KSH v5.2.14 99/07/13.2,
> > I get
> > 
> > $ false; eval 'foo=$?'; echo $foo
> > 0
> > 
> > Is this a shell bug, or am I doing something wrong?
> 
> If POSIX mode is enabled by using `set -o posix' or setting
> POSIXLY_CORRECT, the above command line results in a `1'.
> 
> eval's mentioned in pdksh's manpage (section `POSIX mode'), but
> that relates to the exit status of eval. I'm not sure wether it's
> a documentation bug. Quoting ksh(1):
> 
>   eval exit status.  If eval gets to see an empty command (i.e.
>   eval `false`), its exit status in POSIX mode will be 0.  In
>   non-POSIX mode, it will be the exit status of the last command
>   substitution that was done in the processing of the arguments to
>   eval (or 0 if there were no command substitutions).
> 
> Ciao,
>       Kili

I think this is a bug in pdksh. It's a coincidence the posix flag has
the correct behaviour.

        -Otto