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Re: Dashes in function names: Undocumented?

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On Wed, Aug 12, 2020 at 11:06 AM Eli Schwartz <eschwartz@archlinux.org>
wrote:

> On 8/12/20 10:51 AM, Matthew Persico wrote:
> > I put a bug report into an emacs group because the bash syntax
> highlighter
> > failed to recognize functions whose names have dashes in them.
> >
> > The maintainer came back with this:
> >
> > I can reproduce this behaviour, but is it really a bug? Aren't the
> > names with '-' invalid?
> > The Bash Reference Manual says:
> > name
> >  A word consisting solely of letters, numbers, and underscores, and
> >  beginning with a letter or underscore. Names are used as shell
> >  variable and function names. Also referred to as an identifier.
> > https://www.gnu.org/savannah-checkouts/gnu/bash/manual/bash.html
> >
> > I looked at the manual and I didn't see positive or negative
> > acknowledgement that dashes can be used in function names. But it does
> work.
> >
> > Update to manual?
>
> The bash-20191127 snapshot updated the manpage documentation for a
> function definition (to align with reality). It is now defined as:
>
> function fname [()] compound-command [redirection]
>
> and includes the description:
>
> When in posix mode, fname must be a valid shell name and may not be the
> name of one of the POSIX special builtins. In default mode, a function
> name can be any unquoted shell word that does not contain $.
>
> For context:
>
> word  -  A sequence of characters considered as a single unit by the
> shell. Also known as a token.
>
> name  -  A word consisting only of alphanumeric characters and
> underscores, and beginning with an alphabetic character or an
> underscore. Also referred to as an identifier.
>
>
> > name
> >  A word consisting solely of letters, numbers, and underscores, and
> >  beginning with a letter or underscore. Names are used as shell
> >  variables. Also referred to as an identifier.
> >
> > function name
> >  A word consisting solely of letters, numbers, underscores, dashes, and
> >  beginning with a letter or underscore. Function names are used to label
> > shell
> >  functions.
> >
>
>
> --
> Eli Schwartz
> Bug Wrangler and Trusted User
>
>
Thanks. I will take your word for it, as I cannot seem to find that text at
https://www.gnu.org/savannah-checkouts/gnu/bash/manual/bash.html, unless
that is not the canonical location for the manual.

-- 
Matthew O. Persico

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Re: Dashes in function names: Undocumented? Matthew Persico <matthew.persico@gmail.com> - 2020-08-12 11:51 -0400

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