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From: Bize Ma <binaryzebra@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: gnu.bash.bug
Subject: Re: Assignment of $* to a var removes spaces on unset IFS.
Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2018 22:44:01 -0400
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To: Bize Ma <binaryzebra@gmail.com>, Robert Elz <kre@munnari.oz.au>, bug-bash <bug-bash@gnu.org>, Chet Ramey <chet.ramey@case.edu>
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2018-08-13 23:17 GMT-04:00 Eduardo A. Bustamante L=C3=B3pez <dualbus@gmail.=
com>:

> On Mon, Aug 13, 2018 at 10:52:20PM -0400, Bize Ma wrote:
> (...) My point is that, in the context of bug reports, it's
> important that you always test against the *unreleased* version of the
> code,
>

Not if the version to test is the released one.


> (...)Here's the response from Chet:
>
> http://lists.nongnu.org/archive/html/bug-bash/2017-10/msg00023.html
>
> The fix for this issue is already in the Git repository (devel branch) an=
d
> in
> Bash 5.0.
>

Excellent, that is good to know. There is a solution.

Chet explains it clearly.

Just that it is not applied to the present release version 4.4.
Maybe it should be put into a "stack of pending patches" that all will be
applied when a new number release (4.5) has to be done for whatever
other reason.

When that happens, we can say that it "is solved for current release".

I cannot answer for Chet, but please consider this:
>
> The fix for this bug breaks backwards compatibility


In what sense? Other shells don't have this issue and the change got
introduced in 4.3, so, this change is backward compatible with several
versions up to 4.3 (backward compatible).


> so that means it cannot be
> a patch-level fix for 4.4. It should either be a minor version increase
> (4.5) or
> go into the next major release, which is 5.0 (which was already declared
> alpha
> state, and includes the fix).
>

I am not who must make that call. Someone else must.

If this is not going to be solved in 4.4, then it is a "wontfix" for that
release.

> It seems about time to get it solved. Or say that it won't be.
>
> Again, it's fixed already


No, it is not "fixed already" on 4.4 release.
Let's call things as they are, not as anyone "hope" they can be.

and the fix is scheduled to go out in the next
> release (5.0).
>

Excellent, great, version 5.0 has one issue less to solve. Yay!!


> Given that, do you think this bug is severe enough to have to issue a new
> minor
> version just for it? (4.5),
>

Don't ask me, it is not a call that I can make, I am just a random user.


> or can we just wait for 5.0 to come out which fixes this and a bunch of
> other
> bugs? (see the CHANGES file, in particular, entry `oo',
> http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/bash.git/diff/CHANGES?h=3D
> bash-5.0-testing&id=3D9a51695bed07d37086c352372ac69d0a30039a6b)
>

Yes, there it says that some changes were made to match POSIX
interpretation of $* $@.
I believe that the issue presented in the OP is one of those changes for
5.0.