> Not in my experience, but I haven't tested for them in particular. On my
> system, I see one maintainer script using test -o, none using test -a, and
> none using test ().
>
> I currently see no need to require that test () be supported.
I do. Debian test is provided by the coreutils package. As the man
page says:
( EXPRESSION )
EXPRESSION is true
And, we have the existing rule in section 10.1 of the policy manual:
"Two different packages must not install programs with different
functionality but with the same filenames."
There does not seem to be any reason to exempt shell builtins from this
requirement. I conclude that any shell builtin which exhibits a
different functionality from the official Debian test implementation
(/usr/bin/test, as distributed by coreutils) is buggy.
Now, if people want to say that shells are allowed to create
incompatible builtins for specific cases, then there may well be good
reasons for such an amendment for policy. But it does not exist yet. I
know you think we can ignore that little problem for the time being, but
I am less and less sure.
Thomas
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