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Re: Proposed new POSIX sh policy



On Wed, 2006-11-15 at 22:50 -0600, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
>         I would rather get away from this wording totally.
> ,----
> |  "Shell scripts specifying /bin/sh as interpreter must only use POSIX
> |  features, additionally, they may assume that echo -n .... . Also,
> |  they may use test -a/o and the local directive in shell functions,
> |  as long as ....  If a shell script uses features beyond this set
> |  listed, then 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). "
> `----
> 
>         This does specify what the scripts may expect, but drops all
>  wording from this section regarding what the policy expectation of
>  /bin/sh is.

No, this does *not* specify what scripts may expect.

May I expect test to work with parentheses?  If not, it must be because
'test ( )' is not a "POSIX feature".  And yet, there is nothing in Posix
which makes test have *anything* to do with the shell particularly.  If
using 'test ( )' is not allowed, because it's not a "POSIX feature",
then using "debconf" is *also* not allowed, because it is *also* not a
"POSIX feature".  The point is that "POSIX feature" is *not* a
specification of anything, given the way that POSIX deals with builtins.

Thomas

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