Hi Gerrit, On 2007-12-27 16:00:06 +0000, Gerrit Pape wrote: > On Wed, Dec 12, 2007 at 02:18:47AM +0100, Vincent Lefevre wrote: > > According to POSIX[*], "test \( ! -e \)" is a 4-argument test and is > > here equivalent to "test ! -e". But dash (like ksh93 and bash) yields > > an error: > > > > $ test \( ! -e \) || echo $? > > test: 1: closing paren expected > > 2 > > $ test ! -e || echo $? > > 1 > > Hi Vincent, > > the -e switch to test takes an argument, a pathname.
According to POSIX, in both above examples, "-e" is *not* a switch, just a string. test \( ! -e \) means: return true if the string "-e" is empty, otherwhise return false. The error in dash is that it incorrectly thinks that "-e" is a switch in this context. Regards, -- Vincent Lefèvre <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> - Web: <http://www.vinc17.org/> 100% accessible validated (X)HTML - Blog: <http://www.vinc17.org/blog/> Work: CR INRIA - computer arithmetic / Arenaire project (LIP, ENS-Lyon) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
