>This is primarily addressed to Roland, but is applicable to anyone >else involved in the /sbin/sh -> ksh93 effort. > >What is the plan to deal with compatibility between the existing >/sbin/sh and ksh93? As an example, recently it was discovered that >Solaris /usr/bin/printf allows a certain syntax that it shouldn't >according to the UNIX specification. Since ksh93 has "built in" >commands for many of these, POSIX behaviour is often enforced.
I think that it's a bit of an overstatement to suggest that "Solaris printf accepts syntax it does not". The standard ONLY says that a PORTABLE invocation of a program should use "--" to escape any first argument starting with "-" and that programs not accepting options should skip that argument. Solaris printf does just that. The standard does NOT require an argument of the form -------- to elicit an error. >As the evaluation of ksh93 as a replacement for /bin/sh progresses, I >expect there to be a lot more cases where ksh93 (rightfully) causes >some programs to break due to non-POSIX compliance in the current >Solaris environment. Those do exist but printf isn't one of them. Casper
