Re: < "$@" doesn't expand properly?

["Lawrence Velázquez" <vq@larryv.me>]

On Sat, Oct 4, 2025, at 2:55 AM, Marc Chantreux wrote:
> wow ... thank you so much for digging this. this is the second time
> this year where oppose POSIX standard against consistency and ease of
> use.
>
> I can understand why because most of the scripts I learned with were
> postfixing the redirections so word splitting doesn't matter at this
> point

Sure it does.  Redirections can be infixed, so these are all valid:

	<file cmd arg
	cmd <file arg
	cmd arg <file

Someone who agrees with your argument should logically expect this
to "work":

	set file arg
	cmd < "$@"


>> Almost no shell works the way you are expecting, except for zsh in
>> native mode (which I suspect is where you first tried this syntax)
>
> Not at all.

Ah, well.  I guessed so because I know from the zsh mailing lists
that you're a big zsh fan.


> As the behavior is undefined, of course, I would like to propose to
> behave the most helpful way when it makes sense because
>
> * the other usecases are already doable:
> 	* if the expected behavior is "$*", so use "$*"
> 	* what's the point of A  < "$@" ? use "$1" instead
> * it's a matter of consistency to me. why "$@" can't behave as "$@" ?

One could easily make the same "consistency" argument from the
perspective of the redirection operator.  POSIX disallows this
expansion from producing multiple fields...

	var='foo bar'
	cmd < $var

...so why should this one produce multiple fields?

	set foo bar
	cmd < "$@"

In any case, the existing behavior conforms to POSIX and is far
more portable, so it is not likely to change.


-- 
vq