Re: Pre-Depends of #CDD#-common meta packages from cdd-common
On Sun, Jun 13, 2004 at 12:39:11PM +0100, Colin Watson wrote:
> On Sat, Jun 12, 2004 at 06:03:46PM +0200, Andreas Tille wrote:
> > On Fri, 11 Jun 2004, Colin Watson wrote:
> >
> > > > > # A cut-down version of 'which' from debianutils.
> > > >
> > > > Hmmm, which is part of debianutils which is required. Why do I
> > > > have to work around this?
> > >
> > > You didn't read the patch in detail. (It does *not* use 'which'; it
> >
> > Well, I read it in detail and wondered *why* it does *not* use which
> > if which is available.
> >
> > > reimplements it in pure shell. 'which' isn't reliably-enough portable.)
> >
> > This is what I do not understand: In how far is which not portable?
>
> 'which' is fine for interactive use, but if you try to use it in a
> variety of shells and on a variety of operating systems you'll find that
> its output and even sometimes its exit code vary too wildly for reliable
> use in scripts. I used to use 'which' in a .bashrc shared across a
> number of operating systems, and the astonishing variety of breakage
> (even on some Linux distributions) was why I wrote a pure-Bourne-shell
> version for myself and routinely avoid the command nowadays.
>
> I guess in debian/postinst you can probably get away without worrying
> about this, but I generally prefer portable shell wherever possible, by
> way of good practice if nothing else. Of course, base-passwd.postinst
> has special requirements because it's part of an Essential package, so
> keeping dependencies to an absolute minimum is more valuable there.
Wouldn't it be a good thing to move which from debianutils to
/bin/which. debianutils is essential/required/base, so it should meet
various availability-requirements and minimum-dependency requirements.
Regards: David Weinehall
--
/) David Weinehall <tao@acc.umu.se> /) Northern lights wander (\
// Maintainer of the v2.0 kernel // Dance across the winter sky //
\) http://www.acc.umu.se/~tao/ (/ Full colour fire (/
Reply to: