The "$2" will be resolved, because variables are expanded prior to the execution of a command (see "command evaluation in the Korn shell" - to change the default behaviour is what "eval" is for, yes?) .

The problem is that the "$2" is inside single quotes, which will prevent evaluation of the variable:

# var="hello there"
# print $var
hello there
# print "$var"
hello there
# print '$var'
$var

var="there"
# print 'hello '"$var"'.'
hello there.

vbe said: (thats 6 years now I havent touched dsh, was a time when I was responsible of a SP2...)