Bug#267142: huh?
> I have just reviewed bugs.debian.org/267142, and AFAICT, this is
> incorrect. Your messages listed there have only been in response to
Look for a message from me with "E1ByFzV-0005yk-00@kempis" in the
References: header.
> other people's statements, and seem to be mistaken in taking Debian
> Policy to require restriction to the entire Posix.1 spec.
Amusing.
> A shell with a crazy debconf builtin is still a POSIX compatible
> shell, and so the "should" advice in Policy 10.4 kicks in, and one
> should not use debconf (or use it through a complete path name).
What?
> Strictly speaking, section 10.4 prohibits the use of a non-Posix
> feature in any Posix-specified program, and prohibits the use of
> non-Posix-specified programs entirely (or rather, if one does not use
> a full pathname for the command in question).
>
> But this is clearly not the intention of the section. The section is
> intending only to restrict the use of Posix features *of the shell
> command interpreter*. The problem is that "whether such-and-such is a
> feature of the shell" is itself an issue that shell disagree about,
> and moreover.
I agree that the wording is lacking.
> Note that test -a *will* work on a truly Posix minimal shell, because
> a truly Posix minimal shell won't implement that as a builtin, and so
> /usr/bin/test will be executed, which on Debian does support -a.
Also agreed.
> So the problem is that Policy 10.4 has a technical bug. My preferred
> fix is to list which shells' features one can use, by listing the
> shells. I am happy to see posh on that list, or not; it doesn't
> matter much to me one way or the other.
This was suggested years ago, and I thought it was a bad idea then
too.
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