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Re: behavior of test true -a \( ! -a \)

X-seq: zsh-workers 52803
From: Vincent Lefevre <vincent@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: zsh-workers@xxxxxxx
Subject: Re: behavior of test true -a \( ! -a \)
Date: Sat, 23 Mar 2024 23:20:36 +0100
Archived-at: <https://zsh.org/workers/52803>
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References: <20240321100710.GA164665@qaa.vinc17.org> <CAH+w=7a+P6d_D3BxiO7hqPji9LbduYcu53ZFOSbg8DkL4QK8og@mail.gmail.com> <CAH+w=7bAB+cx-f_qBMKoec=Hdyj_s_pRUeiE8K8wyr_ig1rDeQ@mail.gmail.com>

On 2024-03-23 14:48:36 -0700, Bart Schaefer wrote:
> I'd therefore argue that it's actually
> 
> % test \( ! -a \)
> 
> that is wrong: It should be complaining of a missing close paren,
> rather than magically reverting to treating "!" as "not" (and also
> "-a" as a plain string).  It's entirely dependent on the count of
> arguments rather than on treating parens as tokens.

POSIX specifies what happens with up to 4 arguments. The idea is to
interpret the operators in a way so that the expression is meaningful
rather than having an incorrect syntax.

-- 
Vincent Lefèvre <vincent@xxxxxxxxxx> - Web: <https://www.vinc17.net/>
100% accessible validated (X)HTML - Blog: <https://www.vinc17.net/blog/>
Work: CR INRIA - computer arithmetic / AriC project (LIP, ENS-Lyon)

Follow-Ups:
- Re: behavior of test true -a \( ! -a \)
  - From: Bart Schaefer

References:
- behavior of test true -a \( ! -a \)
  - From: Vincent Lefevre
- Re: behavior of test true -a \( ! -a \)
  - From: Bart Schaefer
- Re: behavior of test true -a \( ! -a \)
  - From: Bart Schaefer

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