> > I also echo your opinions about keeping the scripts portable. > > I can sympathise with this point of view. > > However, I can see another point of view: > > Why, after years and years of happily using bash, everybody should be > tortured now by being forced to work in a shell which: > > * does not have a single source release linked to its homepage > (http://gondor.apana.org.au/~herbert/dash/) > * does not support many (any?) bash extensions, even simple ones > * does not have a testsuite > > Why? > > Who are those people and why I am forced to use their shell now? > > Why am I a hostage now to their whim on when, and *whether*, > they will agree to fix bug foo or implement feature baz? > bash didn't have bug foo and had feature baz, and I was happy. > Now I'm not.
I definitely see your points. But I don't think this discussion should be centered on dash. To me its a debate about using portable POSIX compliant shell scripting vs using bash-specific shell scripting. If we use POSIX compliant code, dash, as well as most other shells should work without issue. If we use bash-specific shell scripting bash will work, and others *may* work. The 2 acceptable solutions to me would be (in order of preference): 1. Use POSIX compliant shell scripting, and using /bin/sh as the interpreter. 2. Use bash shell scripting, and use /bin/bash as the interpreter. Right now, we're using bash scripting, but using /bin/sh as the interpreter. This is what I think is broke. If we use /bin/sh as the interpreter, we shouldn't be using bashisms. If we use /bin/bash as the interpreter, than we're free to use bashisms as we please. So in any case, in my mind it comes down to using option #1 or #2 above - and I do see both sides of that argument. Either #1 or #2 would be an improvement in my opinion. Best, Peter _______________________________________________ busybox mailing list [email protected] http://lists.busybox.net/mailman/listinfo/busybox
