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8.11 The flavor
Function
The flavor
function, like the origin
function, does not
operate on the values of variables but rather it tells you something
about a variable. Specifically, it tells you the flavor of a
variable (see section The Two Flavors of Variables).
The syntax of the flavor
function is:
$(flavor variable)
Note that variable is the name of a variable to inquire about, not a reference to that variable. Therefore you would not normally use a ‘$’ or parentheses when writing it. (You can, however, use a variable reference in the name if you want the name not to be a constant.)
The result of this function is a string that identifies the flavor of the variable variable:
- ‘undefined’
-
if variable was never defined.
- ‘recursive’
-
if variable is a recursively expanded variable.
- ‘simple’
-
if variable is a simply expanded variable.
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