Re: pg_ctl failure with older Bourne shells (use ${1:+"$@"})

Bruce Momjian <pgman(at)candle(dot)pha(dot)pa(dot)us> writes:
> Yes, I have seen this fix before. Are people still using shells that
> don't handle "$@" properly? I guess so or you wouldn't have reported
> it.

I remember having submitted just such a patch a few years ago (for a
different one of our scripts of course) when I was still using HPUX 9.
I'm not sure if later HPUXen have better shells. Plain /bin/sh on this
platform is ancient.

> We only use "$@" in a few places so I am applying this patch.

Could you check for other scripts where the same thing may have snuck
in?

BTW, O'Reilly's "Unix Power Tools" recommends
${1+"$@"}
as the most portable replacement for "$@". Mike's version has :+
which is not the same. My man page for the Bourne shell says

${parameter:+word}
If parameter is set and is non-null, substitute word;
otherwise substitute nothing.

...

If the colon (:) is omitted from the above expressions, the shell only
checks whether parameter is set or not.

It looks to me like the book's method is more correct --- it won't mess
up in the case where $1 has been explicitly given as "".

regards, tom lane