Re: [PATCH] Avoid unportable nested double- and backquotes in shell scripts.

From: Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>
Date: Jan 8, 2011, 16:48 UTC
Message-ID: <20110108164825.GC28898@burratino>
In-Reply-To: <20110108162353.GB4786@gmx.de>

Ralf Wildenhues wrote:

> But git makes heavy use of "no quoting needed on RHS of assignment"
> anyway, so it seems like this would be a good move nonetheless.

No disagreement there.

> And the
> testsuite uses backticks a lot,

>From a quick grep, it seems you are right:

 $ git grep -c -F -e '`' -- 't/*.sh' | cut -d: -f2 | sum
 65126     1
 $ git grep -c -F -e '$(' -- 't/*.sh' | cut -d: -f2 | sum
 64807     1
 $ git grep -c -F -e '`' -- '*.sh' | cut -d: -f2 | sum
 13350     1
 $ git grep -c -F -e '$(' -- '*.sh' | cut -d: -f2 | sum
 07810     1

Documentation/CodingGuidelines

 - We prefer $( ... ) for command substitution; unlike ``, it
   properly nests.  It should have been the way Bourne spelled
   it from day one, but unfortunately isn't.

> it seems a move away from that should be
> done more uniformly?

I don't see why. :) In fact, I personally would not be happy at all to see such a high-churn patch as that, while using the $( ... ) form in new code and as part of clarifications to other parts of the same lines would seem to me to be a welcome thing.

Having said all that, I have no strong investment in this. Feel free to do what works best for you.

Thanks, Jonathan