Robert Elz <k...@munnari.oz.au> wrote, on 18 Feb 2020: > > Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2020 15:22:08 +0000 > From: Geoff Clare <g...@opengroup.org> > > | Not at all. If the discrepancy between ksh88 and POSIX.2-1992 had > | come to light before those systems were certified, the standard would > | have been amended to allow the ksh88 behaviour at that time. The end > | result would be the same, just the timing would be different. > > That might or might not be correct, it is impossible to say now - after > all "select" was known at the time, and not standardised, my guess is > that the reserved word "time" would, at best, have been treated the same, > but we can never know for sure now.
You misunderstood my point. The ksh time reserved word was well known at the time, and the POSIX.2-1992 developers believed they had written the description of the time utility in a way that allowed it. This is clear from the RATIONALE on the time utility page. What has come to light since is that there are other ways in which the behaviour of the time reserved word in ksh is not allowed by POSIX, besides those that the standard developers explicitly allowed. This is what I meant by "the discrepancy between ksh88 and POSIX.2-1992". > However I would note XRAT C.2.4 ... > > The list of unspecified reserved words is from the KornShell, > so conforming applications cannot use them in places a reserved > word would be recognized. This list contained time in early proposals, > but it was removed when the time utility was selected for the Shell > and Utilities volume of POSIX.1-2017. > > which to me suggests the exact opposite of what you believe would > have happened (someone with access to earlier copies of the standard > would need to check and see how long that text has been there, certainly > that it mentions "POSIX.1-2017" means nothing, that's just "current version"). It is clear from the RATIONALE on the time utility page that the above means that they considered making time an unspecified reserved word like select, but then decided instead to accommodate its behaviour in the description of the time utility. -- Geoff Clare <g.cl...@opengroup.org> The Open Group, Apex Plaza, Forbury Road, Reading, RG1 1AX, England
