[PLUG] what does &(...) do?

[Bill Morita]

Mike

Hello from Alaska

Given the ((...)),
the dot-dot-dot represents an algebraic type math expression.
Remove quotes in expressions below.
Normally you can't have an expression in bash of the sort "a*5%3" (e.g. a
times 5 modulo 3).
An alternate form is "let b=a/3"
Look for "let" under Bash built-ins in the referenced Bash manual.
This lets you not have to use "expr" for computations.

-- 
-- Bill Morita

On Thu, Feb 16, 2012 at 10:52 AM, Mike Connors <mconnors1 at gmail.com> wrote:

> >
> > Sorry to frustrate you with my sloppy cut and paste and brain addled
> > proofreading.
> > That should read:
> >
> >   Bash continues to amaze me.
> >
> > I know what & does in the general sense, and I suspect that &(...) forks
> > off
> > some processes from within a script.
> >
> > But
> >
> > I don't _know_ what that does. Lack of punctuation based searching in
> > impeding my efforts to look it up.
> > Having had to work last night (jobs are useful but sometimes ...)
> > prevented me from experimenting.
> >
> > So I asked.
> >
>
> I'd be curious to see this in the larger context? "&" be used as a control
> character among other uses. There does exist the command ((...))
>
> --enable-dparen-arithmeticInclude support for the ((...)) command (see
> Conditional
> Constructs<
> http://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/bashref.html#Conditional-Constructs
> >
> ).
>
> Single parens usually denote an expression "(value)" with a used in a test
> utility. But the "..." is what really throws me. This is generally used as
> a symbolic reference in describing BASH commands such as  name=(value1 ...
> valuen).
>
> Whatever the command syntax does, it seems to not be very highly
> referenced...
>
>