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# 15  
Old 08-30-2009
Quote:
Originally Posted by KenJackson
Are you saying that the syntax of [!...] as described in the Filename Expansion section of the Bash manual is not POSIX and not portable?
Or do you just mean that Bash in general is not POSIX and not portable?

Oh! I just found a document from the OpenGroup that describes Pattern Matching Notation which says, A bracket expression starting with an unquoted <circumflex> character produces unspecified results. Great! A built-in gotcha.

If you use non-standard syntax, you should expect to have problems.
Quote:
It is true that Bash has extensions beyond POSIX, and therefore if something works perfectly in the Bash shell, there is no guarantee it will work in some other shell. For that reason there is wisdom in insisting on POSIX compatibility as you do.

Absolutely.
Quote:
But one has to consider the context in which one codes. Many scripts will never be used outside of Bash, or even be seen by someone who holds Bash extensions in other than the highest regard. If one writes a Perl or Python script, it's not wrong to require that it only be run on systems with Perl or Python installed. I don't think it's out of order to view Bash scripts similarly.

There is a major difference between a shell and perl or python. A shell is a necessary component of a system; perl and python are not.

When I write a script, I try to write it using a portable (i.e. POSIX) syntax. If writing for bash, I may use bash extensions, but I never use bash-only syntax for something that can be coded with POSIX syntax.
# 16  
Old 08-30-2009
Okay it turned out that no matter what I do $# wasn't returning anything but 0 which is why it wasn't working correctly. I'm looking into the problem now.
# 17  
Old 08-31-2009
Ha figured it out. Apparently I was right about it not liking to count arguments in a variable, it had to be added inthe command line when the script itself was called.
Thanks for your help all. My program works great now ^_^ THANKYOU!
# 18  
Old 09-01-2009
Quote:
Originally Posted by javajynx
Ha figured it out. Apparently I was right about it not liking to count arguments in a variable, it had to be added inthe command line when the script itself was called.
Thanks for your help all. My program works great now ^_^ THANKYOU!

javajynx can you please post the working code so i can follow what you have been doing to make it work thank you.
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