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Re: Proposed new POSIX sh policy



On Sun, 2006-11-19 at 14:53 -0700, Bruce Sass wrote:
> On Sun November 19 2006 14:03, Thomas Bushnell BSG wrote:
> > On Sun, 2006-11-19 at 18:43 +0100, David Weinehall wrote:
> > > On Sat, Nov 18, 2006 at 08:01:04AM -0800, Thomas Bushnell BSG wrote:
> > > > On Sat, 2006-11-18 at 11:30 +0100, Andreas Metzler wrote:
> > > > > > Well, the goal was (in part) to catch scripts which use
> > > > > > non-Posix features of echo and test; why are non-Posix
> > > > > > features of ls not an issue?
> > > > >
> > > > > <quote>
> > > > > Since I cannot think of a legitimate reason for anyone to use
> > > > > ls in a shell script, I think it would add little value.
> > > > > <unquote>
> > > >
> > > > Makes you wonder why it's in Posix.2 at all, huh?  (Posix.2 is
> > > > about scripts, not user interaction.)
> > >
> > > "The ls utility shall conform to the Base Definitions volume of
> > > IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, Section 12.2, Utility Syntax Guidelines."
> > >
> > > It's a *utility*, not a shell function.
> >
> > Right.  "test" and "echo" are also defined as utilities, not shell
> > functions.
> 
> IEEE Std 1003.1, 2004 Edition, section 2.14:
> "The term "built-in" implies that the shell can execute the utility 
> directly and does not need to search for it. An implementation may 
> choose to make any utility a built-in..."

Right.  Just like ls, or debconf.

Posix puts grep, ls, kill, test, and echo all in *exactly the same
category*.  So why does posh treat them so differently?  Why is catching
non-Posix uses of test and echo important, and non-Posix uses of ls grep
not important?  

Thomas

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