Re: Expansion of unquoted special parameter $@ when used as the word for a HERE STRING

[Greg Wooledge]

On Tue, Nov 05, 2019 at 10:30:39AM -1000, Robin A. Meade wrote:
> Consider:
> 
> set a 'b   c'
> cat <<< $@;
> 
> The output is:
> 
> a b c
> 
> I expected the 3 spaces between b and c to be preserved.

wooledg:~$ set -- a 'b   c'
wooledg:~$ cat <<< "$*"
a b   c
wooledg:~$ cat <<< "$@"
a b   c
wooledg:~$ cat <<< $@
a b c

Technically only "$*" is correct here.  That expands to a single word.
"$@" expands to a list of words, and it doesn't really make sense to
use a here-string with a list of strings.

Unquoted $* and $@ are just plain wrong, and you shouldn't use them.