The following issue has been SUBMITTED.
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https://austingroupbugs.net/view.php?id=1640
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Reported By: kre
Assigned To:
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Project: 1003.1(2016/18)/Issue7+TC2
Issue ID: 1640
Category: Shell and Utilities
Type: Error
Severity: Objection
Priority: normal
Status: New
Name: Robert Elz
Organization:
User Reference:
Section: XCU 3 / true
Page Number: 3318
Line Number: 111745 - 111748
Interp Status: ---
Final Accepted Text:
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Date Submitted: 2023-03-12 07:00 UTC
Last Modified: 2023-03-12 07:00 UTC
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Summary: The rationale given for retaining "true" is
nonsense.
Description:
The RATIONALE section of the page for the "true" utility says:
The true utility has been retained in this volume of POSIX.1-2017,
even though the shell special built-in : provides similar
functionality,
because true is widely used in historical scripts and is less cryptic
to
novice script readers.
That text remains unchanged in Issue 8 draft 2.1
The functionality is only vaguely similar, true is a normal utility, ':'
is
a special builtin, hence the consequences of redirection errors are
different, and use, redirections are used with these utilities.
Further, the OPERANDS listed for "true" are "None" which XCU 1.4 says
means "When this section is listed as ``None.'', it means that the
implementation need not support any operands.", which allows an
implementation to do things with operands if it wants, including issueing
an error message failing (turning info "false"). While none do, that I
am aware of (true is generally, and entirely, "exit 0" or "exit(0)" in C)
it is possible.
Finally, since this bug is being submitted against Issue 7 TC2,
XCU 2.9.1.1 bullet point 'd' says:
If the command name matches the name of the type or ulimit utility,
or of a utility listed in the following table, that utility shall be
invoked.
Note "shall be invoked" and "true" is in the table. If there were no
"true" utility, that would be impossible, so deleting true really could
not have happened (back then) no matter how redundant it seemed to be.
Note that in Issue 8 draft 2.1, this has altered, it is now 2.9.1.4
(still bullet point d) but that now refers to the intrinsic utilities
defined in XCU 1.7, and "true" is not in that list.
Desired Action:
Delete the entire RATIONAL section (lines 111746 - 111748) and replace
them with <blockquote>None.</blockquote>
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Issue History
Date Modified Username Field Change
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2023-03-12 07:00 kre New Issue
2023-03-12 07:00 kre Name => Robert Elz
2023-03-12 07:00 kre Section => XCU 3 / true
2023-03-12 07:00 kre Page Number => 3318
2023-03-12 07:00 kre Line Number => 111745 - 111748
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