all vars affected have been carefully checked to be quite certain
that they are definitely local
where variable is assigned the return value of a function/command, the
local "declaration" is deliberately done on a separate line, since
`local FOO` is actually treated itself as a command rather than a
declaration; will thus always cause $? to be zero, and thus if done on
the same line as such an assignment can not only clobber $? but in doing
so unintentionally blocks failure of a command from triggering the
expected exit from having `set -e`.
also, from testing, i have found that when assigning "${@}" this must be
done on a separate line confusingly as otherwise an error occurs.
Gbp-Dch: Short
c55eb8a0c3