offtopic on awk [was: Re: Metatables]

[David Jones <drj@...>]

In message <200202280003.VAA08283@lua.tecgraf.puc-rio.br>, Luiz Henrique de Fig
ueiredo writes:
> Perhaps FOO == awk ?
> 
> (and then you'll
> be cloning the behaviour of awk, which allows a=0 and a[0]=1 simultaneously).

GNU awk may allow that but it is not standard.

Line 6068 - 6069 of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 "Standard for Information
Technology Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX) Shell and
Utilities, Issue 6" (the bit describing the behaviour of awk) says:

  The same name shall not be used within the same
  scope both as a scalar variable and as an array.

Cheers,
 drj