From: Junio C Hamano <junkio@cox.net>
Date: Wed, 19 Oct 2005 16:58:12 GMT
Subject: Re: Pushing a single tag (ref + object)?
Message-ID: <7vvezt8mvv.fsf@assigned-by-dhcp.cox.net>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.64.0510190702360.3369@g5.osdl.org>

Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org> writes:

> It does all this magic to set "x", but then it never uses it, and uses 
> "$@" instead after all. Which it has shifted all away. 

Your /bin/sh scripting is rotting ;-) That is not a variable.
If you saw the script actually used the value 'x' then you have
spotted a bug.

That 'x' is not a magic but an old idiom to protect 'set' from
getting confused by "$1" that happens to begin with a '-'.
Setting random things is done by "set x random things"
immediately followed by shifting that x away.