On Thu, 15 Apr 2010 09:28:04 +1000 Allan McRae <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 15/04/10 03:40, Thomas Bächler wrote: > > Am 14.04.2010 18:42, schrieb Dieter Plaetinck: > >>> On Tuesday 13 April 2010 14:04:44 Allan McRae wrote: > >>>> This changes /usr/bin/[ from a symlink to /usr/bin/test to the > >>>> actual binary provided upstream. The use of the symlink has > >>>> been in Arch for ages (probably for ever), but I can not see > >>>> what this change will break. Having the symlink does break > >>>> some stuff (FS#19063). Note that Fedora moved from the symlink > >>>> to the binary for "[" in 2004. > >> > >> so what exactly does the binary do? is it an exact copy > >> of /usr/bin/test, is it a small program that does exec(), or .. ? > >> I downloaded the 8.4 tarball but couldn't quickly find the answer. > > > > I don't think it matters. Neither [ nor test from coreutils are > > actually ever used - the bash (or whatever shell you use) builtins > > [ and test are used instead. > > > > In general, this is the only real difference: > NOTE: [ honors the --help and --version options, but test does not. > test treats each of those as it treats any other nonempty STRING. > > The rest I think is better compatibility with test synatx when your > shell does not provide "[". > > Anyway, we should be supplying what upstream installs. I asked it just out of curiosity. I agree we should stick to upstream. Dieter
