Apologies for further email. I missed some subtle differences in the wording.. "need not" vs "shall not" > > Its much better than this. > > SUS says -n is invalid and not allowed but you must support \c etc > POSIX says -n is valid and that you must not support \c
Existing POSIX.2 says implementations need not support options, and then says if the first operand is "-n" or operands contain a backslash then its implementation defined - thus basically allowing but not requiring existing behaviors . Whereas, SUS requires an implementation shall not support options, and did not define behavior for an operand consisting of the string "-n" The Draft POSIX revision is now aligned with the SUS. I'll raise the issue (a bug report was received on the SUS defect list) with the Austin Group. regards Andrew
