[Date Prev][Date Next] [Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

Re: minibash - an alternative for /bin/{da,po}sh ?



On 12 Jan 2003 17:53:21 -0800
Ian Zimmerman <itz@speakeasy.org> wrote:
> marco> And why should it be preferred to dash?
> 
> Because it solves all the stupid compatibility bugs.  I did this when
> I got fed up with them (see #176098, #171791, #171638 ...)

At least two of those bugs rely on non-standard behaviour of #!/bin/sh.
The correct solution is to either fix the bugs in those scripts, or make
them use a known-good interpreter.

Shell is a language. When people code for #!/bin/sh, they should get
/bin/sh, as documented. The solution is not to provide a non-standard
shell that works for (a very few, these days) broken scripts, but to fix
those scripts.

The third bug, which may actually be a bug in dash's
standards-compliance, is another matter. It should be fixed. The shell
shouldn't be replaced with something that happens to conform in this
particular instance, while being non-conformant in many, many other
places.

Attachment: pgpgjU1KVr4w1.pgp
Description: PGP signature


Reply to: