Re: unwanted expansion of variable with nested strings

[Aharon Robbins]

In article <address@hidden> you write:
>On Thursday 04 May 2006 00:44, Paul Jarc wrote:
>> Mike Frysinger <address@hidden> wrote:
>> > $ foo="a b c"
>> > $ gawk 'BEGIN {foo="'${foo}'"}'
>> > gawk: BEGIN {foo="a
>> > gawk:            ^ unterminated string
>>
>> This is normal.  man bash:
>>
>> #   Word Splitting
>> #       The  shell  scans the results of parameter expansion, command
>> substitu- #       tion, and arithmetic expansion that did not occur within
>> double  quotes #       for word splitting.
>
>thanks, this is the bit i was unable to locate myself
>
>> > so if i quote ${foo} like so:
>> > $ gawk 'BEGIN {foo="'"${foo}"'"}'
>> > it'll work in this case, but then fail if foo contains newlines:
>> > foo="a
>> > b
>> > c"
>>
>> What do you mean by "fail"?  What do you want to happen in this case?
>
>i meant gawk hates it ... not bash
>-mike

Why are you surprised? This is the definition of the awk language, that
unescaped newlines inside a string are a syntax error. The same is true
of C and C++.  Any awk will produce an error, not just gawk.

Arnold
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