I was playing with the following scenario:
IFS set to backslash,
using read (with and without -r),
triggering field splitting by passing multiple names to read,
triggering field splitting by expanding an unquoted parameter.
And, I found the following results:
(note: the ones with a # <something>, that means that the 'read' was fed that
something, via: "$sh" -c 'code that reads' <<< "something")
(note: bbsh is busybox ash, and bsh is heirloom sh)
# - code [ # input ] bash ksh93 mksh zsh
bbsh bsh dash
# 1 IFS=\\ a=\<\\\>; printf %s\\n $a <^J> <^J> <^J> <^J>
<^J> <\> <^J>
# 2 IFS=: b=\<:\>; printf %s\\n $b <^J> <^J> <^J> <^J>
<^J> <^J> <^J>
# 3 IFS=\\ read f g; printf %s\\n "$f" # <\> <> < < <
<> < <>
# 4 IFS=\\ read f g; printf %s\\n "$f" # <\\> <\> < < <
<\> < <\>
# 5 IFS=\\ read f g; printf %s\\n "$f" # <\^J> <> < <> <
<> <> <>
# 6 IFS=\\ read f g; printf %s\\n "$g" # <\> > > >
>
# 7 IFS=\\ read f g; printf %s\\n "$g" # <\\> \> \> >
>
# 8 IFS=\\ read f g; printf %s\\n "$g" # <\^J>
# 9 IFS=\\ read f; printf %s\\n "$f" # <\> <> <\> <\> <>
<> <> <>
# 10 IFS=\\ read f; printf %s\\n "$f" # <\\> <\> <\\> <\\> <\>
<\> <\> <\>
# 11 IFS=\\ read f; printf %s\\n "$f" # <\^J> <> < <> <>
<> <> <>
# 12 IFS=\\ read -r f g; printf %s\\n "$f" # <\> < < < < <
< <
# 13 IFS=\\ read -r f g; printf %s\\n "$f" # <\\> < < < < <
< <
# 14 IFS=\\ read -r f g; printf %s\\n "$f" # <\^J> < < < < <
< <
# 15 IFS=\\ read -r f g; printf %s\\n "$g" # <\> > > > > >
> >
# 16 IFS=\\ read -r f g; printf %s\\n "$g" # <\\> \> \> \> \>
\> > \>
# 17 IFS=\\ read -r f g; printf %s\\n "$g" # <\^J>
# 18 IFS=\\ read -r f; printf %s\\n "$f" # <\> <\> <\> <\> <\>
<\> <\> <\>
# 19 IFS=\\ read -r f; printf %s\\n "$f" # <\\> <\\> <\\> <\\> <\\>
<\\> <\\> <\\>
# 20 IFS=\\ read -r f; printf %s\\n "$f" # <\^J> < < < <\
<\ < <
Some comments I have:
- bash and dash seem to:
* read the input,
* if -r is not in effect, remove backslashes, except if these are escaped,
* then they should split the input into fields, but they do not (see: #4)
- ksh93 and mksh behave identically, except for #5 and #11 (I think this is an
mksh bug). From POSIX, I think the ksh's are wrong in #9 and #10.
The script I used to generate this is attached.
#!/bin/bash
: <<\eof
Behavior of shells when IFS='\'
The case when IFS='\' is tricky for the following situations:
- read with -r
- read without -r
- a parameter expansion, unquoted, that contains the backslash
You will find the behaviour of some shells at the end of this script.
read
----
The read utility shall read a single line from standard input.
By default, unless the -r option is specified, backslash ( '\' ) shall act as
an escape character, as described in Escape Character (Backslash). If standard
input is a terminal device and the invoking shell is interactive, read shall
prompt for a continuation line when:
The shell reads an input line ending with a backslash, unless the -r option is
specified.
A here-document is not terminated after a <newline> is entered.
The line shall be split into fields as in the shell (see Field Splitting); the
first field shall be assigned to the first variable var, the second field to
the second variable var, and so on. If there are fewer var operands specified
than there are fields, the leftover fields and their intervening separators
shall be assigned to the last var. If there are fewer fields than vars, the
remaining vars shall be set to empty strings.
escape character (backslash)
----------------------------
A backslash that is not quoted shall preserve the literal value of the
following character, with the exception of a <newline>. If a <newline> follows
the backslash, the shell shall interpret this as line continuation. The
backslash and <newline>s shall be removed before splitting the input into
tokens. Since the escaped <newline> is removed entirely from the input and is
not replaced by any white space, it cannot serve as a token separator.
field splitting
---------------
After parameter expansion ( Parameter Expansion), command substitution (
Command Substitution), and arithmetic expansion ( Arithmetic Expansion), the
shell shall scan the results of expansions and substitutions that did not occur
in double-quotes for field splitting and multiple fields can result.
The shell shall treat each character of the IFS as a delimiter and use the
delimiters to split the results of parameter expansion and command substitution
into fields.
If the value of IFS is a <space>, <tab>, and <newline>, or if it is unset, any
sequence of <space>s, <tab>s, or <newline>s at the beginning or end of the
input shall be ignored and any sequence of those characters within the input
shall delimit a field. For example, the input:
<newline><space><tab>foo<tab><tab>bar<space>
yields two fields, foo and bar.
If the value of IFS is null, no field splitting shall be performed.
Otherwise, the following rules shall be applied in sequence. The term " IFS
white space" is used to mean any sequence (zero or more instances) of white
space characters that are in the IFS value (for example, if IFS contains
<space>/ <comma>/ <tab>, any sequence of <space>s and <tab>s is considered IFS
white space).
IFS white space shall be ignored at the beginning and end of the input.
Each occurrence in the input of an IFS character that is not IFS white space,
along with any adjacent IFS white space, shall delimit a field, as described
previously.
Non-zero-length IFS white space shall delimit a field.
references
----------
- read:
http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/utilities/read.html
- escape character:
http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/utilities/xcu_chap02.html#tag_02_02_01
- field splitting:
http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/utilities/xcu_chap02.html#tag_02_06_05
eof
bbsh(){ busybox ash "$@"; }
bsh() { ~/local/bin/sh "$@"; } # heirloom
zsh() { command zsh -o shwordsplit "$@"; }
cases=(
'IFS=\\ read f; printf %s\\n "$f"'
'IFS=\\ read f g; printf %s\\n "$f"'
'IFS=\\ read f g; printf %s\\n "$g"'
'IFS=\\ read -r f; printf %s\\n "$f"'
'IFS=\\ read -r f g; printf %s\\n "$f"'
'IFS=\\ read -r f g; printf %s\\n "$g"'
'IFS=\\ a=\<\\\>; printf %s\\n $a'
'IFS=: b=\<:\>; printf %s\\n $b'
)
if [[ $extended ]]; then
cases+=(
'IFS=\\ read -r -d "" f g; printf %s\\n "$g"'
)
fi
shells=(
bash
ksh93
mksh
zsh
)
if [[ ! $extended ]]; then
shells+=(
bbsh
bsh
dash
)
fi
inputs=(
'<\>'
'<\\>'
$'<\\\n>'
)
doit() {
local code sh input result
code=$1 sh=$2 input=$3
result=$(
if [[ $input ]]; then
"$sh" -c "$code" <<< "$input"
else
"$sh" -c "$code"
fi
printf x
)
result=${result%??} # echo's newline and the 'x'
# ASCII US: 037
printf '%s\037%s\037%s\037%s\n' "$code" "$sh" \
"${result//$'\n'/^J}" "${input//$'\n'/^J}"
}
for code in "${cases[@]}"; do
hasinput=
[[ $code = *' read '* ]] && hasinput=y
if [[ $hasinput ]]; then
for input in "${inputs[@]}"; do
for sh in "${shells[@]}"; do
doit "$code" "$sh" "$input"
done
done
else
for sh in "${shells[@]}"; do
doit "$code" "$sh"
done
fi
done | {
declare -A results rows
while IFS=$'\037' read -r code sh result input; do
if [[ $input ]]; then
rows[$code' # '$input]=y
results[$code' # '$input|$sh]=$result
else
rows[$code]=y
results[$code|$sh]=$result
fi
done
printf '%s\037%s\037' - 'code [ # input ]'
for sh in "${shells[@]}"; do
printf '%s\037' "$sh"
done; printf \\n
for row in "${!rows[@]}"; do
printf '%s\037' "$row"
for sh in "${shells[@]}"; do
printf '%s\037' "${results[$row|$sh]}"
done
printf \\n
done|sort|awk '{print NR"\037"$0}'
} | column -s $'\037' -nt | sed 's/^/# /'
# - code [ # input ] bash ksh93 mksh zsh
bbsh bsh dash
# 1 IFS=\\ a=\<\\\>; printf %s\\n $a <^J> <^J> <^J> <^J>
<^J> <\> <^J>
# 2 IFS=: b=\<:\>; printf %s\\n $b <^J> <^J> <^J> <^J>
<^J> <^J> <^J>
# 3 IFS=\\ read f g; printf %s\\n "$f" # <\> <> < < <
<> < <>
# 4 IFS=\\ read f g; printf %s\\n "$f" # <\\> <\> < < <
<\> < <\>
# 5 IFS=\\ read f g; printf %s\\n "$f" # <\^J> <> < <> <
<> <> <>
# 6 IFS=\\ read f g; printf %s\\n "$g" # <\> > > >
>
# 7 IFS=\\ read f g; printf %s\\n "$g" # <\\> \> \> >
>
# 8 IFS=\\ read f g; printf %s\\n "$g" # <\^J>
# 9 IFS=\\ read f; printf %s\\n "$f" # <\> <> <\> <\> <>
<> <> <>
# 10 IFS=\\ read f; printf %s\\n "$f" # <\\> <\> <\\> <\\> <\>
<\> <\> <\>
# 11 IFS=\\ read f; printf %s\\n "$f" # <\^J> <> < <> <>
<> <> <>
# 12 IFS=\\ read -r f g; printf %s\\n "$f" # <\> < < < < <
< <
# 13 IFS=\\ read -r f g; printf %s\\n "$f" # <\\> < < < < <
< <
# 14 IFS=\\ read -r f g; printf %s\\n "$f" # <\^J> < < < < <
< <
# 15 IFS=\\ read -r f g; printf %s\\n "$g" # <\> > > > > >
> >
# 16 IFS=\\ read -r f g; printf %s\\n "$g" # <\\> \> \> \> \>
\> > \>
# 17 IFS=\\ read -r f g; printf %s\\n "$g" # <\^J>
# 18 IFS=\\ read -r f; printf %s\\n "$f" # <\> <\> <\> <\> <\>
<\> <\> <\>
# 19 IFS=\\ read -r f; printf %s\\n "$f" # <\\> <\\> <\\> <\\> <\\>
<\\> <\\> <\\>
# 20 IFS=\\ read -r f; printf %s\\n "$f" # <\^J> < < < <\
<\ < <
