In `makepkg' (that is, in `scripts/makepkg.sh.in'), the following exist: local provides_list=() eval $(awk '/^[[:space:]]*provides=/,/\)/' "$BUILDFILE" | \ sed -e "s/provides=/provides_list+=/" -e "s/#.*//" -e 's/\\$//') ... local backup_list=() eval $(awk '/^[[:space:]]*backup=/,/\)/' "$BUILDFILE" | \ sed -e "s/backup=/backup_list+=/" -e "s/#.*//" -e 's/\\$//') ... local optdepends_list=() eval $(awk '/^[[:space:]]*optdepends=\(/,/\)[[:space:]]*(#.*)?$/' "$BUILDFILE" | \ sed -e "s/optdepends=/optdepends_list+=/" -e "s/#.*//" -e 's/\\$//') ... local known kopt options_list eval $(awk '/^[[:space:]]*options=/,/\)/' "$BUILDFILE" | \ sed -e "s/options=/options_list+=/" -e "s/#.*//" -e 's/\\$//') Perhaps there are more. As you can plainly see, this ruins the ability to include comments that use the `)' character, as in the following: options=( '!strip' '!makeflags' # Apparently, there are issues with concurrency (`-j2', etc.) ) Sincerely, Michael Witten