<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 TRANSITIONAL//EN"> <HTML> <HEAD> <META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; CHARSET=UTF-8"> <META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="GtkHTML/3.26.0"> </HEAD> <BODY> On Thu, 2010-09-16 at 06:04 -0700, Dan Nicholson wrote: <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE> <TT>Clearly this is just bikeshedding, but I think this practice sucks.</TT> <TT>There are very clear times when the braces are useful or needed to</TT> <TT>delimit variables or do parameter expansion. Every other usage is just</TT> <TT>adding extra characters and typing. This diff is a perfect example of</TT> <TT>it: 114 lines changed for zero functional difference.</TT> </BLOCKQUOTE> My bash book implicitly agrees. The $varname syntax is a simpler form of ${varname}. The book enumerates cases where you must use it. By not using braces when not required, it gives additional information to the reader of the script about values the variable may or may not have. Gaetan </BODY> </HTML>