[developers-reference] 01/01: Don't recommend to use "if [ -x /usr/bin/<cmd> ]; …" in maintainer scripts

[Axel Beckert <abe@deuxchevaux.org>]

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abe pushed a commit to branch devref-vs-#769845
in repository developers-reference.

commit 5c152e0a5aae7f84c11062643f1065b3b86a34a0
Author: Axel Beckert <abe@deuxchevaux.org>
Date:   Thu Dec 7 02:22:43 2017 +0100

    Don't recommend to use "if [ -x /usr/bin/<cmd> ]; …" in maintainer scripts
    
    Fixes the equivalent of #769845 (against lintian) in the devref.
    
    With input from the discussion in #807695 (against lintian, too).
---
 best-pkging-practices.dbk |  7 +------
 common.ent                | 13 -------------
 2 files changed, 1 insertion(+), 19 deletions(-)

diff --git a/best-pkging-practices.dbk b/best-pkging-practices.dbk
index 27b5eca..51617ec 100644
--- a/best-pkging-practices.dbk
+++ b/best-pkging-practices.dbk
@@ -659,12 +659,7 @@ maintainer script.
 If you need to check for the existence of a command, you should use something
 like
 </para>
-<programlisting>if [ -x /usr/sbin/install-docs ]; then ...</programlisting>
-<para>
-If you don't wish to hard-code the path of a command in your maintainer script,
-the following POSIX-compliant shell function may help:
-</para>
-&example-pathfind;
+<programlisting>if which install-docs > /dev/null; then ...</programlisting>
 <para>
 You can use this function to search <varname>$PATH</varname> for a command
 name, passed as an argument.  It returns true (zero) if the command was found,
diff --git a/common.ent b/common.ent
index 1bbed6a..66e0e58 100644
--- a/common.ent
+++ b/common.ent
@@ -256,16 +256,3 @@ pool/non-free/f/firmware-nonfree/
 
 uudecode-file:
     perl -ne 'print(unpack &quot;u&quot;, $$_);' $(file).uuencoded &gt; $(file)</programlisting>">
-
-<!ENTITY example-pathfind '<programlisting>pathfind() {
-    OLDIFS="$IFS"
-    IFS=:
-    for p in $PATH; do
-        if [ -x "$p/$*" ]; then
-            IFS="$OLDIFS"
-            return 0
-        fi
-    done
-    IFS="$OLDIFS"
-    return 1
-}</programlisting>'>

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