Let's avoid a religeous debate over shells. > Why shouldn't he learn Bash? All the Linux init scripts are in Bash, > the %pre and %post scripts in RPMs are in Bash, and lots of other system > management scripts are in Bash, so it seems like it makes more sense to > learn Bash.
This is a Linux discussion, so if we stay within Linux, fine, let's code for BASH. But not all systems have BASH, and on many which do have it "/bin/sh" is not BASH but some other shell. So if the scripts are to be at all portable beyond Linux, avoid BASH-isms. Working for an ISV, I cannot recount the pain encountered where KSH was assumed to be universal. Both Solaris and HP have it, perhaps AIX too (or a work-alike). But along comes Linux where "/bin/sh" is not KSH (but is BASH! oh my!) and scripts with K-shell dependency are immediately broken. And there are other platforms where neither KSH nor BASH are available (or are optional, and we do not want to burden the customer with pre-req upon pre-req). The cases you cite are all Linux or might reasonaly assume Linux even where Linux is not explicit. -- R; ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
