On: Safe ways to do things in bash

[Hello71]

what the balls are you talking about?

    $ touch bad; a='*'; echo $a
    bad

I tested with shbot and this is the case in at least original bourne sh, ksh, mksh, dash, bash 1, and bash 4.4.

[kazinator → Hello71]

Indeed; see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17070872

I'd erase my hasty comment if I could. I'm just praying it gets downvoted to invisibility now.