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Re: How functions are defined

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    Date:        Mon, 27 Apr 2020 22:03:47 -0400
    From:        worley@alum.mit.edu (Dale R. Worley)
    Message-ID:  <87pnbsfjss.fsf@hobgoblin.ariadne.com>

  | While I was looking at the details of parsing function definitions, I
  | tripped on something I should have noticed long ago.  In the function
  | definition
  |
  |     function foo() {
  |         command
  |     }

I think this is your problem.   The definition of a function is
really

	name ( ) compound-command

and in the ksh/bash variant version

	function name ( ) compound-command

There are no braces in the syntax (and I omitted redirections which are
not relevant here).

When looking for a "compound-command" we start out looking for the
first word of a command, and that's exactly where a reserved word
can be found.

Some shells actually permit

	name ( ) command

instead where it is even clearer (but which gives rise to one small,
and mostly irrelevant, ambiguity - also not relevant here.)

Note that the text you quoted:

   Reserved words are words that have a special meaning to the shell.  The
   following words are recognized as reserved when unquoted and either the
   first word of a simple command ...

note that "first word" has nothing to do with lines, that the "name ()"
comes earlier doesn't mean that a command (or compound-command) doesn't
follow, and that thing starts with a "first word" (of itself).

kre

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Re: How functions are defined Robert Elz <kre@munnari.OZ.AU> - 2020-04-28 22:46 +0700

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