Re: Future of /usr/bin/which in Debian?
Clint Adams dijo [Wed, Aug 18, 2021 at 04:20:02AM +0000]:
> > Besides, will the new "which" tool be installed in Debian by default? Since
> > debianutils is Essential:yes, not providing "which" tool by default could
> > probably break some existing packages.
>
> My personal opinion is that no one should be using `which` in maintainer
> scripts and that no one should be using `which` in an interactive shell
> unless it is a builtin of that shell.
>
> There are a ton of postinst scripts relying on `which` right
> now, which makes sense because `type` and `command -v` used to be
> optional extensions to POSIX and not guaranteed to be provided
> by /bin/sh.
I agree with you, maintainer scripts should not rely on 'which'
anymore. However, what about users? 'which' is a standard Unix tool
since forever, and I expect many users to experience head scratching
when told it's not cool to use it anymore.
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