[ means test right? Maybe? (was: Re: GOTCHA in Ubuntu - broken shell)

[Tom Buskey]

On 10/1/07, Jeffry Smith <jsmith at alum.mit.edu> wrote:
>
> On 10/1/07, Tom Buskey <tom at buskey.name> wrote:
>
> >
> > Here's the relevant bash (3.2.9) man page on Fedora 7:
> >
> >
> >       string == pattern
> >               True,  if  string  matches  pattern.  Any part of pattern
> can
> > be
> >               quoted to cause it to be matched as a string.  With a
> > successful
> >               match  to  a  pattern, the .sh.match array variable will
> > contain
> >               the match and sub-pattern matches.
> >        string = pattern
> >               Same as == above, but is obsolete.
> >
> > And Solaris (bash 3.00.16):
> >  string1 == string2
> >           True if the strings are equal.  = may be used in  place
> >           of == for strict POSIX compliance.
> >
> > Sounds like dash isn't fully cooked.  == is used & works in ksh, bash
> and
> > sh.
> >
> Actually, dash is fully cooked - note that those are bash pages.  Note
> specifically on Solaris:  "= may be used in place of == for strict
> POSIX compliance."
>
> I don't have access to the dash man page right now, but the Ubuntu
> reason for dash is that it's Posix compliant.  "==" may work, but
> you're depending on non-standard (as in de jure) behavior.
>
> Not saying I agree with the decision, merely pointing out saying that
> "dash isn't fully cooked" when it supports POSIX when in POSIX mode,
> and bash for some reason accepts other things that are not specified
> by POSIX is not a good arguing point.



Ah, I missed something.  ksh (on Fedora) says:
       string = pattern
              Same as == above, but is obsolete.

So POSIX says use = and ksh says = is obsolete.  Ugh.
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