On Tue, Jun 10, 2014 at 8:39 AM, Dale R. Worley <wor...@alum.mit.edu> wrote: >> From: Dan Douglas <orm...@gmail.com> >> >> On Mon, Jun 9, 2014 at 7:51 PM, Dale R. Worley <wor...@alum.mit.edu> wrote: >> > But if I add braces around the condition, 'time' is recognized: >> >> That's not too surprising. That "!" is unaffected is. "if ! ! time :; >> then ..." is an equivalent but working pipeline. "if time { :; };" >> should also be valid but time isn't recognized. > > It might not be surprising, but it's incorrect according to the manual > page. > > That "! !" works at all is astonishing, because the syntax in the > manual page seems to show that only one "!" is allowed:
Chet explained the actual workings pretty well if you're interested: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bash/2012-10/msg00062.html The manual is incomplete but I think the real behavior makes sense. The "if time" case you noticed is still pretty clearly buggy.