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

[Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>]

Hi,

In July, 2008, Raphael Geissert wrote:

> As demonstrated by the following trivia[1], and also mentioned by SUSv3, the 
> echo built-in varies from implementation to implementation and thus should be 
> discouraged.
[...]
> + o='Foo:\n\tI do not like bar!!\n\nBar:\n\tI do not like you either'
[...]
> Shells tested: 8
> Shells expandind backslashes: 5
> /bin/echo does NOT expand
> 8<---trivia-ends-here--->8
>
> Additionally, the usage of echo -n should also be discouraged because it may 
> not help stressing the idea of echo not being portable.

I think it would make sense to discourage use of strings that might
contain a backslash as arguments to "echo" in some informative
document such as devref or in a footnote to policy.

The discussion of this bug seems to have clarified that use of
echo and "echo -n" to print static strings is popular and not
something that is going away soon.

Does that seem like a fair summary?  What do you suggest as a next
step?

Thanks,
Jonathan