[BusyBox] lash KEY=VALUE

[Larry Doolittle]

Andreas asked:
> [ lash doesn't understand "FOO=bar ls" or "FOO=bar" ]
> is it a bug or a missing feature? do i always have to use export when using
> variables in shell scripts?

Erik answered:
> This is a never implemented feature.  No local variables in lash
> -- just environment variables.  This will not be fixed, but the
> sucessor of lash, named hush, will support _full_ bourne shell
> syntax, including local variables.

All accurate, with the caveat that _full_ Bourne shell syntax
and grammar is a long way off.  I don't want to even work on
functions, case statements, and a few more oddball behaviors
until the core feature set (as I see them) are well debugged.
And yes, "FOO=bar ls" (simple command environment variable
override) and "FOO=bar" (local variable assignment) are essential
parts of that core.  Except for the fact that they trigger some
subtle exceptions to quoting rules, I don't even think they are
hard to implement.  Grab a copy of hush, the bash man page, and
the Open Group Shell Command Language description
   http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/007908799/xcu/chap2.html#tag_001
and give it a try!  I just linked from my page
   http://doolittle.faludi.com/~larry/parser.html
to Andy Dickinson's
   http://www.whydna.net/hush/

        - Larry