Russ Allbery <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> Manoj Srivastava <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>> This flows from the Release policy. Not specifying /bin/bash
>> in scripts is not considered a RC bug.
> I can try to propose better language for this. I think that using pure
> bash-specific constructs not found in dash in /bin/sh scripts should
> actually be an RC bug, but using test -a or test -o should not. I think
> we need to say that /bin/sh scripts are permitted to use POSIX shell
> capabilities plus a short list of additional capabilities that
> everything other than posh also implement.
Here's a proposed patch. What do people think about this approach? I
know there was an inconclusive Policy discussion a while back about how
best to deal with this issue. As you can tell from this patch, I favor
the approach of documenting the specific features that we require and
assuming that their semantics are sufficiently clear in practice.
This patch would resolve Policy bug #294962 as well.
--- orig/policy.sgml
+++ mod/policy.sgml
@@ -6727,25 +6727,34 @@
<p>
The standard shell interpreter <file>/bin/sh</file> can be a
- symbolic link to any POSIX compatible shell, if <tt>echo
- -n</tt> does not generate a newline.<footnote>
- Debian policy specifies POSIX behavior for
- <file>/bin/sh</file>, but <tt>echo -n</tt> has widespread
- use in the Linux community (in particular including this
- policy, the Linux kernel source, many Debian scripts,
- etc.). This <tt>echo -n</tt> mechanism is valid but not
- required under POSIX, hence this explicit addition.
- Also, rumour has it that this shall be mandated under
- the LSB anyway.
- </footnote>
+ symbolic link to any POSIX compatible shell provided that it
+ supports the following additional features not mandated by
+ POSIX:
+ <list>
+ <item><tt>echo -n</tt> must not generate a newline<footnote>
+ Debian policy specifies POSIX behavior for
+ <file>/bin/sh</file>, but <tt>echo -n</tt> has widespread
+ use in the Linux community (in particular including this
+ policy, the Linux kernel source, many Debian scripts,
+ etc.). This <tt>echo -n</tt> mechanism is valid but not
+ required under POSIX, hence this explicit addition. Also,
+ rumour has it that this shall be mandated under the LSB
+ anyway.
+ </footnote>
+ </item>
+ <item>the <tt>-a</tt> and <tt>-o</tt> <tt>test</tt> operators
+ must be supported</item>
+ <item><tt>local</tt> to create a scoped variable must be
+ supported</item>
+ </list>
Thus, shell scripts specifying <file>/bin/sh</file> as
- interpreter must only use POSIX features. If a script
- requires non-POSIX features from the shell interpreter, the
- appropriate shell must be specified in the first line of the
- script (e.g., <tt>#!/bin/bash</tt>) and the package must
- depend on the package providing the shell (unless the shell
- package is marked "Essential", as in the case of
- <prgn>bash</prgn>).
+ interpreter must only use POSIX features or features guaranteed
+ by the above list. If a script requires other non-POSIX features
+ from the shell interpreter, the appropriate shell must be
+ specified in the first line of the script (e.g.,
+ <tt>#!/bin/bash</tt>) and the package must depend on the package
+ providing the shell (unless the shell package is marked
+ "Essential", as in the case of <prgn>bash</prgn>).
</p>
<p>
--
Russ Allbery ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
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