Variable expansion inside of functions

Klaus Ethgen <[email protected]> Sat, 18 Apr 2026 13:33:30 +0100

Newsgroups	gmane.comp.shells.zsh.user
Message-ID	<aeN6GjRBGVWDG6SP@chil>

Hi,

I have a strange problem. I need to change a command to a function.
Theoretically that works like a charm. But now I want to make that
definition a bit more general and struggle as variables gets not
evaluated when it should be.

Here is my definition:
```
   for i in pdfgrep rg
   do
      if whence -p "$i" >&-
      then
         "$i"()
         {
            local -a arg
            local val

            for val in "$@"
            do
               if [[ -a "$val" ]]
               then
                  arg+="$val"
               else
                  arg+="$(print -- "$val" | iconv -f $(locale charmap) -t UTF-8)"
               fi
            done

            command "$i" "$arg[@]"
         }
      fi
   done
```

When I do that, I get the following for pdfgrep:
```
~> which pdfgrep
pdfgrep () {
        local -a arg
        local val
        for val in "$@"
        do
                if [[ -a "$val" ]]
                then
                        arg+="$val"
                else
                        arg+="$(print -- "$val" | iconv -f $(locale charmap) -t UTF-8)"
                fi
        done
        command "$i" "$arg[@]"
}
```

As you can see, $i is not evaluated in the function definition.

Is there any way to evaluate $i inside the function definition; but only
that variable?

Regards
   Klaus
-- 
Klaus Ethgen                                       http://www.ethgen.ch/
pub  4096R/4E20AF1C 2011-05-16            Klaus Ethgen <[email protected]>
Fingerprint: 85D4 CA42 952C 949B 1753  62B3 79D0 B06F 4E20 AF1C

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