Re: function invoking alias fails if defined in same conditional

[Eric Blake]

On 03/16/2012 02:56 PM, gregrwm wrote:
> a function invoking an alias works, unless they are defined within the same 
> conditional, eg:

Thanks for the report, but this is not a bug.  Remember, aliases affect
parsing, so they can only be expanded during the parsing phase.  But
bash has to parse until the end of a compound command before it can do
any action within the command.  In that sense, 'alias' is exactly like
'set -v' just recently discussed here:
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/help-bash/2012-03/msg00025.html

> 
> $ if true;then
>>    alias aseparate='echo aseparate'
>> fi
> $ if true;then
>>          fseparate    ()(aseparate)
>> fi

Bash parsed two commands, so the parse of the second command was done
with the alias expansion of the first command in effect.

> $ if true;then
>>    alias atogether='echo atogether'
>>          ftogether    ()(atogether)
>> fi

Here, bash parses the entire compound command, then starts executing it.
 At the time of the parse, ftogether() was declared without any extra
meaning for atogether.

> $ aseparate
> aseparate
> $ fseparate
> aseparate
> $ atogether
> atogether
> $ ftogether
> bash: atogether: command not found

This behavior is expected, and not a bug.

-- 
Eric Blake   eblake@redhat.com    +1-919-301-3266
Libvirt virtualization library http://libvirt.org

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