From: Christoph Anton Mitterer <calestyo@scientia.org>
To: dash@vger.kernel.org
Subject: possible wrong behaviour with patterns using a quoted ^ at the start of a bracket expression
Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2022 17:25:47 +0100 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <09fd70edcf08c75b4f9f2e158e3e6c0832d35d90.camel@scientia.org> (raw)
Hey.
I recently got some big deal of help from the people at the help-bash
mailing list when I've tried to understand what POSIX mandates with
respect to pattern matching (that is in the sense of [0], not
Basic/Extended Regular Expressions).
I'm still not so sure whether I understand it exactly by the wording of
POSIX itself (which seems a bit odd to me), but what people
explained[1] me at help-bash - and I hope I explain it correctly - is:
In the patterns, even in a bracket expression in a pattern, there may
be quoting (with double and single quotes), and - and this is key -
anything that is quoted is already taken literal with respect to the
pattern.
So when one has e.g. a case compound command:
case $foo in
(['*?'])
...
is already the literal * and ? within a pattern's bracket expression.
Further, POSIX says:
"If an open bracket introduces a bracket expression as in XBD RE
Bracket Expression, except that the <exclamation-mark> character ( '!'
) shall replace the <circumflex> character ( '^' ) in its role in a
non-matching list in the regular expression notation, it shall
introduce a pattern bracket expression. A bracket expression starting
with an unquoted <circumflex> character produces unspecified results.
Otherwise, '[' shall match the character itself."
I found not the following probably wrong behaviour of dash and busybox'
sh:
$ cat circumflex-test
case "$1" in
(['^.a'])
echo match
;;
(*)
echo else
esac
$ cat exclamation-test
case "$1" in
(['!.a'])
echo match
;;
(*)
echo else
esac
$ cat run-circumflex
echo dash:
dash circumflex-test ^
dash circumflex-test .
dash circumflex-test a
echo busybox-sh:
busybox sh circumflex-test ^
busybox sh circumflex-test .
busybox sh circumflex-test a
echo bash:
bash circumflex-test ^
bash circumflex-test .
bash circumflex-test a
echo klibc-sh:
/usr/lib/klibc/bin/sh circumflex-test ^
/usr/lib/klibc/bin/sh circumflex-test .
/usr/lib/klibc/bin/sh circumflex-test a
$ cat run-exlamation
echo dash:
dash exclamation-test '!'
dash exclamation-test .
dash exclamation-test a
echo busybox-sh:
busybox sh exclamation-test '!'
busybox sh exclamation-test .
busybox sh exclamation-test a
echo bash:
bash exclamation-test '!'
bash exclamation-test .
bash exclamation-test a
echo klibc-sh:
/usr/lib/klibc/bin/sh exclamation-test '!'
/usr/lib/klibc/bin/sh exclamation-test .
/usr/lib/klibc/bin/sh exclamation-test a
When run:
$ sh run-circumflex | paste - - - - | column -t
dash: match else else
busybox-sh: match else else
bash: match match match
klibc-sh: match match match
$
^ . a
$ sh run-exlamation | paste - - - - | column -t
dash: match match match
busybox-sh: match match match
bash: match match match
klibc-sh: match match match
$
! . a
The results for the run-circumflex seem pretty odd.
Apparently, the ^ is taken literally, but the other two are negated.
$ dash circumflex-test b
match
$ busybox sh circumflex-test b
match
match again (which, AFAIU, they should not).
While POSIX does say:
"A bracket expression starting with an unquoted <circumflex> character
produces unspecified results."
... the circumflex *is* quoted above...
I haven't verified any further unusual patterns like ['$var'] vs.
["$var"], so maybe an eye should be kept open, whether there could be
any issues as well.
Thanks,
Chris.
PS: For reference, the bug[2] I've opened at BusyBox.
[0] https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/V3_chap02.html#tag_18_13
[1] https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/help-bash/2022-01/msg00000.html
[2] https://bugs.busybox.net/show_bug.cgi?id=14516
next reply other threads:[~2022-01-12 16:31 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 15+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2022-01-12 16:25 Christoph Anton Mitterer [this message]
2022-01-12 17:20 ` possible wrong behaviour with patterns using a quoted ^ at the start of a bracket expression Harald van Dijk
2022-01-12 17:47 ` Christoph Anton Mitterer
2022-01-12 18:17 ` Harald van Dijk
2022-01-12 18:21 ` Christoph Anton Mitterer
2022-01-18 6:13 ` [PATCH] expand: Always quote caret when using fnmatch Herbert Xu
2022-01-18 8:44 ` Harald van Dijk
2022-01-19 5:37 ` [v2 PATCH] " Herbert Xu
2022-02-20 7:15 ` Stephane Chazelas
2022-02-21 16:39 ` Eric Blake
2022-02-21 17:06 ` Harald van Dijk
2022-02-21 19:15 ` Stephane Chazelas
2022-01-18 14:29 ` [PATCH] " Christoph Anton Mitterer
2022-01-18 14:54 ` Chet Ramey
2022-01-18 22:33 ` Herbert Xu
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