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Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.bhp.com.au!mel.dit.csiro.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!news.eng.convex.com!newshost.convex.com!bcm.tmc.edu!news.msfc.nasa.gov!newsfeed.internetmci.com!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!uchinews!news From: csdayton+usenet@midway.uchicago.edu (Soren Dayton) Subject: Re: /bin/sh isn't Bourne shell In-Reply-To: ejr@dickens.bra01.icl.co.uk's message of 31 Jan 1996 16:56:50 GMT X-Nntp-Posting-Host: woodlawn.uchicago.edu Message-ID: <xcdg2cvangz.fsf@woodlawn.uchicago.edu> To: E.J.Randall@bra0126.wins.icl.co.uk Lines: 34 Sender: csdayton@woodlawn.uchicago.edu Organization: uchi.comp.unix viper cabal X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.1 References: <4ekrik$rlf@eccles.dsbc.icl.co.uk> <xcdensholio.fsf@woodlawn.uchicago.edu> <4enl74$ifr@eccles.dsbc.icl.co.uk> <DM1x4C.GML@deshaw.com> <4eo70i$o7j@eccles.dsbc.icl.co.uk> Date: Thu, 1 Feb 1996 00:39:08 GMT Our friend, ejr@dickens.bra01.icl.co.uk (Ed Randall), wrote: > What has been achieved by making "/bin/sh" POSIX compliant ? Simple. It is more portable than anything else then. Do you realize that the only reason all those god-awful configure scripts are necessary is because people refused to be compliant with some standard. Posix is great. It means that you can take your code to another posix compliant machine and be really happy. > Or are you now going to tell me that the POSIX specification says that "root" > must use "/bin/csh" as the default (i.e. like it installs) ??! I will confess that this _really_ pisses me off too. > And the "MAKEDEV" script is one of the first. well then. It seems like the problem is that ENV should not be allowed to be used in things like this. Or MAKEDEV is badly written or something like that. Most shells have an option that allows them to _not_ inherent the environment. Give that one a whirl. > Does "ash" behave like a proper Bourne shell without the "CSRG" modifications ? No. It is not posix compliant > I've got better things to do than fool around at this level, that's why I junked > Linux a year ago. It is not fooling around. Posix is a _good_thing_. _good_ programs assume posix. anything else cannot make any reasonable assumptions (hey, does this work in V6?) Soren