Re: Is this a bug?

[Perry Smith <pedz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Jan 18, 2026, at 09:59, Mikael Magnusson <mikachu@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Sun, Jan 18, 2026 at 4:39 PM Perry Smith <pedz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

#!/bin/zsh

echo $ZSH_PATCHLEVEL
echo $ZSH_VERSION
A=( this is an arry of words )
echo "${#A}"
unset "A[-1]"
echo "${#A}"

Result:

zsh-5.9-0-g73d3173
5.9
6
6

I would expect the last echo to be only 5 instead of 6.

I’m writing a script.  I can easily cope with this but I thought I would mention it.

Unsetting a scalar sets it to the empty string, you probably rather want
A[-1]=()

Thank you!

That works but from the manual I see:

       To delete an element of an ordinary array, assign `()' to that element.

       To delete an element of an associative array, use the unset command:

              unset "name[exp]"

Thank you for your time

pedz