[1218] in Athena Bugs
60C vax csh: `...` evaluation recursion
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (John Carr)
Sun Oct 23 03:03:42 1988
To: bugs@ATHENA.MIT.EDU
Date: Sun, 23 Oct 88 03:03:09 EDT
From: John Carr <jfc@ATHENA.MIT.EDU>
% alias hp `hesinfo \!* passwd`
Illegal instruction (core dumped)
%
I know what I did wrong: I used the wrong type of quotes. Other examples:
% echo `\!*` [long pause here after <RETURN>...]
Illegal instruction (core dumped)
[echo puts its newline here]
% more `\!*` [long pause...]
Illegal instruction (core dumped)
Usage: more [-dfln] [+linenum | +/pattern] name1 name2 ...
Perhaps it is getting into a loop somehow (trying to history substitute the
current line for the "\!*" and therefore resolving another level of `...`
until it runs out of space)? That the problem occurs with echo implies that
it is entirely in the csh. The core dump seems to be of the csh (though it
continues running afterward...presumably it is a child process that dies).
This is a bug, despite the fact that I found it due to my own error. At
worst I should have gotten an error message, like that from an infinite
alias substitution:
% alias b 'c'
% alias c 'b'
% b
Alias loop.
%
--John Carr
