[Pkg-zsh-devel] Bug#871816: Bug#871787: Bug#871816: zsh: error "defining function based on alias ..."

[Axel Beckert]

Hi Daniel,

Daniel Shahaf wrote:
> It is mentioned in the list of incompatibilities in the upstream
> README.

Thanks for that hint. I've updated the entry for the NEWS.Debian as
follows and will commit and push that soon:

zsh (5.4.1-1) unstable; urgency=medium

  From the upstream README of 5.4.1:

  > The default behaviour of code like the following has changed:
  >
  >   alias foo='noglob foo'
  >   foo() { print function body; }
  >
  > When this is encountered in a start-up file, or other place where
  > input was read line by line, "foo" is in command position and is
  > expanded as an alias before the function definition takes place.  In
  > previous versions of the shell, this caused two functions "noglob" and
  > "foo" to be defined.  Any expansion of an alias in a function
  > definition is nearly always an unintended effect, as well as hard to
  > detect, so has been made an error.  (The option setting
  > NO_MULTI_FUNC_DEF turned this case into an error, but did not help
  > with other cases and is off by default.)  The alternative, of not
  > expanding the alias, was rejected as it was more difficult to achieve
  > in the parser and also would silently change the shell's behaviur
  > between versions.  A new option, ALIAS_FUNC_DEF, has been added, which
  > can be set to make the shell behave as in previous versions.  It is in
  > any case recommended to use the "function" keyword, as aliases are not
  > expanded afterwards.

  The common error message triggered by this change looks as follows:

  > zsh: defining function based on alias `foo'
  > zsh: parse error near `()'

  See https://bugs.debian.org/871816 for more information.

 -- Axel Beckert <abe at debian.org>  Fri, 11 Aug 2017 21:43:25 +0200


		Regards, Axel
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