Re: shells and posix compliance [was Re: Switching /bin/sh to dash without dash essential]

[Giacomo Catenazzi <cate@debian.org>]

Clint Adams wrote:
> [not replying off-list because that seems counterproductive and arrogant]
>
> On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 03:49:15PM +0000, brian m. carlson wrote:
> > Actually, if it's invoked as /bin/sh, it is supposed to be
> > Bourne-compatible.  That's my experience with the current version:
>
> Not much effort is put into strict POSIX compliance, though people
> certainly do complain about it[1].
>
> > I don't know what other versions do.  I'm working on finding bugs with
> > zsh as /bin/sh; see #510358.  If anyone knows about a good /bin/sh
> > (POSIX, XSI, or Debian) testsuite, please let me know off-list.
>
> I'd certainly welcome improvements to the posh testsuite to that end.
> Run the harness with category 'debian' or 'posix' depending on which
> "standard" you're going for.

BTW Linux is not POSIX. Linux (LSB) has few incompatible rules.
Check the join working document austin (POSIX) and LSB:

http://www.opengroup.org/platform/single_unix_specification/doc.tpl?CALLER=index.tpl&gdid=13450

Personal opinion: it seems that linux will do some changes to be more
posix compatible, but for most of incompatibilities (IMHO) POSIX will 
change toward linux.

ciao
    cate