bug in /bin/sh

[Christian Bertin]

First, I apologized if this is an ancient bug. There is a problem in the
argument passing when shell functions are used: The expansion of $* turns
quoted strings into multiple arguments. The expansion of $1, for example,
works fine:

If I type:

			$ print() echo $1
			$ print a b

I get

			a

Which is OK. If I type:

			$ print "a b" c

I get

			a b

Which is also OK.

But, if I type:

			$ mail() /usr/bin/mailx $*
			$ mail -s "a b c d e f" chris

the quoted string has become multiple arguments to 'mailx', so if I type

			~h

I get

			To: b c d e f chris
			Subject: a
			Cc:
			Bcc:

When I should have

			To: chris
			Subject: a b c d e f
			Cc:
			Bcc:

If 'mailx' is used directly, everything is OK. Single quotes don't work any
better, in case you were tempted to try. If there is a fix for this, I would
appreciate if someone could mail it to me.

Thanks in advance.


Chris

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