Why does the arithmetic evaluation code complain about `08'?

Why does the arithmetic evaluation code complain about `08'? 


The bash arithmetic evaluation code (used for `let', $(()), (()), and in

other places), interprets a leading `0' in numeric constants as denoting

an octal number, and a leading `0x' as denoting hexadecimal.  This is

in accordance with the POSIX.2 spec, section 2.9.2.1, which states that

arithmetic constants should be handled as signed long integers as defined

by the ANSI/ISO C standard.



The POSIX.2 interpretation committee has confirmed this:



http://www.pasc.org/interps/unofficial/db/p1003.2/pasc-1003.2-173.html

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