bash - $@ vs shift inconsistent

[Dirk Fieldhouse]

I'm not sure that this is a specific CYGWIN issue, but I don't have access to a bash on a machine that allows spaces in filenames (surely the underscore character was invented to avoid these ...)

In bash 2.01.1 (b20.1/W95B), the following sequences which should have identical behaviour do not:

#!/bin/bash
for arg in "$@" ; do 
    echo "$arg" # splits "arg with spaces" into 3 args
    done

#!/bin/bash
while [ "$1" ] ; do 
    echo "$1"  # maintains "arg with spaces" as one argument
    shift
    done

I haven't tested these against ash, nor with the latest bash release (2.03?), and I would be delighted to hear that this is a historical problem.

I am sure that the second behaviour is correct, especially given the bash manual's description of $@.


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Dirk Fieldhouse                 Logica UK Limited
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