Is this a bug in sh?

[Pete French]

>From article <PAUL.89Jul4155856 at marvin.moncam.co.uk>, by paul at moncam.co.uk (Paul Hudson):
> 
> script1 is		and  	script2 is
> 
> echo $0				echo $0
> name=`basename $0`		name= `basename $0`
> 				     ^
> 			Note the space here.
> 
> executing script1 prints "script1" as you would expect.  Executing
> script2 prints "script2" "script2" ...... and spawns shells at an
> enormous rate.
> 
> This is sunos4.0 on a sun3/50.

This took some playing to figure out but....

Try this :

	$ name=abc date
	Thu Jul  6 13:36:38 WET DST 1989
	$ echo $name
	abc

The shell will do the assignment and then run the next command on the line
for some unexplained reason. What you have is

	name= `basename $0`

Which will be expanded (correctly) to

	name= script2

The shell will now assign a blank to name and run script2 - thus re-running
the same script. This is what is causing the multiple shells.

Why the shell executes a command on the same line as an assignment is beyond
me, however. You normally need semicolons to separate commands on the same
line in shell. It sems to be acting as if it was...

	$ name=abc; date

-Pete French.