Since the concern raised is about portability and buggy implementations, another strategy which addresses "test" returning inaccurate information is to conditionally use access(F_OK) only on platforms where it is known to be reliable. One way (but not the only way) is to use ifdefs, eg.
#ifdef LINUX return access(F_OK) == 0; #else return stat() == 0; #endif This makes the "test" builtin more accurate at the cost of a slightly greater code maintenance burden. I'm unsure if the disagreement here is that you don't think the behavior described is a bug, or we disagree on the best way to resolve this bug. -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of mksh Mailing List, which is subscribed to mksh. Matching subscriptions: mkshlist-to-mksh-bugmail https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1817959 Title: "test -e" inaccurately returns false when stat() is disallowed Status in mksh: Invalid Bug description: From "man 1 test" NAME test - check file types and compare values DESCRIPTION Exit with the status determined by EXPRESSION. [deleted] -e FILE FILE exists When "test -e" is called, it is intended to determine the existence or non-existence of a file. However, the "test" command is implemented using stat(), which may be disallowed by security policy. If stat() is disallowed, "test" will falsely claim a file doesn't exist when it really exists. Replacing "stat() == 0" with "access(F_OK) == 0" fixes this problem. See attached patch. To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/mksh/+bug/1817959/+subscriptions
