Re: About the "nameref" feature in bash...

In article <vj4c02$3rrc3$1@dont-email.me>,
Janis Papanagnou  <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> wrote:

On 08.12.2024 15:41, Kenny McCormack wrote:

In article <vj48k5$3r1bq$1@dont-email.me>,
Janis Papanagnou  <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> wrote:

On 08.12.2024 13:51, Kenny McCormack wrote:

Bash has a "nameref" attribute on variables,

>
Is that a newer feature of bash? (My version doesn't support -n with
'local' or with 'declare'.) My response is based on the ksh feature.
The underlying ideas of the feature might be reflected in both shells
in similar ways.

 
I think I read somewhere that it came in at bash 4.3 (c. 2014/2015) - which
is rather old now.  So, I wouldn't call it "new".

>
Yeah - "newer" is a very subjective and context specific term.

Yup.

It's my [deliberately frozen] standard box I use regularly that
is still running bash 2.4; so some, erm.., "newer" features of
bash I cannot test [on that system] (without manual changes).
I see a downloaded "bash 5.0" package lying around on the file
system (not installed), but that's it. :-)

I'm a fan of "retro" software, too, and I'm skeptical of the sort of people
you often see who act as if if you aren't running the absolute latest and
greatest, then your input is useless.

Most of my systems are running a pretty old spin of Debian and the bash
on these systems is of the 4.3 vintage.

OTOH, I am kind of a fanboy of bash and I do follow the developments there.
I usually self-compile the latest version for some subset of my systems.  I
just d/l'd the 5.3.alpha tarball (which is from April 2024).  Haven't
gotten around to compiling it yet.  I'm wondering "how alpha is alpha?"

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