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Re: Proposed new POSIX sh policy



Thomas Bushnell BSG <tb@becket.net> writes:

> On Wed, 2006-11-15 at 16:28 -0700, Bruce Sass wrote:
> At that point, I suggested and still suggest that we change Policy to
> restrict /bin/sh to a specific set of shells, rather than just any
> "Posix-compatible shell".  

I think this could be solved with wording like:

   ...must work with any POSIX compliant shell. The reference shell in
   Debian is /bin/dash, which can be used to test the maintainer
   scripts. It is however recommended that the maintainer scripts are
   made as general as possible and not restricted to any particular
   sh-implementation, not even /bin/dash.

I'm sure someone can rephrase the above better, my idea being:

- /bin/dash is the measure (the minimum)

- It is encouraged that maintainers accept patches and seek ways to
  generalize scripts (= pay attention to lintian warnings) 
  even further so that they are not restricted to even
  /bin/dash alone. It is preferred that scrpts could also work with
  /bin/posh /bin/pdksh /bin/mksh etc. as well, if this does not require
  overly complex constructs in the programs.

Jari



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