Re: Issue with VAR=foo cmd where VAR is a named reference

[Bart Schaefer <schaefer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, Jul 10, 2026 at 6:39 AM Philippe Altherr
<philippe.altherr@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> Bart suggested that "var=foo cmd" ought to be the same as running "cmd" in a scope augmented with an exported local "var" parameter: "() { local -x var=foo; cmd }". However, this is incompatible with the current behavior. Indeed, the type of the assigned parameters is preserved. For example, "typeset -i var; var=10+1 printenv var" is equivalent to "typeset -i var; () { local -x -i var=10+1; printenv var }". My proposal is to do the same for references, such that "typeset -n ref=foo; ref=bar cmd" is equivalent to "typeset -n ref=foo; () { local -n ref=bar; cmd }".

This seems to me to be in direct conflict with the (reasonable)
assertion in workers/54943 that references should not be exported, and
also with workers/54948 where you question why inline assignments
differ from ALL_EXPORT.  The reasoning behind my suggestion (above)
was that inline assignments should always yield something that
actually goes into the environment:  the -x flag in the "as if local
-x" is important, and your proposal discards it in the case of
references.

I'd be more inclined to believe that preservation of (for example)
integer-ness is an accident than an intention with respect to inline
assignments, that it occurs only because scalar-ness is preserved.
Certainly integer-ness etc. is not preserved when the command is
external.

When the inline assignment is for a parameter declared as an array the
type of the assigned parameter is not preserved:

% typeset -a foo=(a 2 z)
% foo=bar /usr/bin/printenv foo
bar
% foo=bar printenv foo
bar
% f() { typeset -p foo; printenv foo }
% foo=bar f
export foo=bar
bar

I think this should apply to anything that can't be exported, so if a
reference can't be exported then an inline assignment to a reference
should temporarily hide it behind a scalar.