Bug#490605: debian-policy: please discourage the usage of echo -n, and echo in general

[Bill Allombert <Bill.Allombert@math.u-bordeaux1.fr>]

On Mon, Jun 01, 2009 at 01:38:37AM -0500, Raphael Geissert wrote:
> > - "-n" is so wide used, that other solution will create more bugs!
> >
> >    Anyway, no user should use "echo -n" to print "-n" (POSIX
> >    discurages it), so again, it is a non-problem.
> 
> The idea is to explicitely discourage its usage, not to forbid it.

It does not make sense to policy to discourage "echo -n". Policy
could deprecate it in favor of something else, but I do not see
any alternative mentioned in this bug report, and otherwise 
discouraging "echo -n" would amount to discourage shell scripts to display
lines that does not end by a newline, while Policy 9.4. mandates that init
scripts display "Starting foo" without an ending newline.
Furthermore, adding vague recommendation to policy is a waste of resource.

So, is there an alternative to "echo -n" that you would like to recommends, and
are you willing to do the job to make sure that all "Debian sh"-compliant 
shells in Debian support it ?

Cheers,
-- 
Bill. <ballombe@debian.org>

Imagine a large red swirl here.