BASH - Why does TEST=' .* ' assign the listing of the current directory to TEST?

Question

This is driving me nuts. Everything in single quotes is supposed to be assigned as is, yet if I do the following:

TEST=' .* '

echo $TEST

I get a bunch of garbage on the screen listing all "dot" files in the current directory...

Any help would be appreciated.

Answer 1

echo "$TEST"

If you don't quote the variable, it is expanded on the second command line.

Answer 2

It actually assigns ".*" to TEST. It only expands to the file listing when you echo it.