Re: Public service announcement about Policy 10.4

[Thomas Bushnell BSG <tb@becket.net>]

"Brian M. Carlson" <sandals@crustytoothpaste.ath.cx> writes:

> This is a public service announcement about Debian Policy section 10.4,
> which states in part:
>
>   The standard shell interpreter `/bin/sh' can be a symbolic link to any
>   POSIX compatible shell, if `echo -n' does not generate a newline.[1]
>   Thus, shell scripts specifying `/bin/sh' as interpreter should only
>   use POSIX features.  If a script requires non-POSIX features from the
>   shell interpreter, the appropriate shell must be specified in the
>   first line of the script (e.g., `#!/bin/bash') and the package must
>   depend on the package providing the shell (unless the shell package is
>   marked "Essential", as in the case of `bash').

> I would like to point out that the following are not POSIX features:
>
> local
> test -o
> test -a

Debian programs may legitimately assume that the Debian versions of
other programs (including /bin/test) are installed.  If your shell
chooses to implement such things as builtins, it is obliged to do so
in a way which is compatible with the Debian standard versions of
those utilities.

Thomas