I didn't know that till I saw this post on comp.unix.shell. For someone who still works on old Solaris boxes that is a shocker. In the nicest possible way.
But if you look at the thread, it appears that it is applicable only to the bash shell and more modern variants. For a minute, I thought it was something which was always there for older shells and only I didn't know about it.
At least, now that I know about it, I can safely use the new idiom with the Linux boxes that I get my hands on. But almost all my work environment is with customer's UNIX boxes which come with the default bourne shell which I cannot change.
So, while good to know, I think I shall have little use for it in my work environment
But if you look at the thread, it appears that it is applicable only to the bash shell and more modern variants. For a minute, I thought it was something which was always there for older shells and only I didn't know about it.
At least, now that I know about it, I can safely use the new idiom with the Linux boxes that I get my hands on. But almost all my work environment is with customer's UNIX boxes which come with the default bourne shell which I cannot change.
So, while good to know, I think I shall have little use for it in my work environment
