On Sat, Oct 01, 2016 at 01:38:49PM +1000, john slee wrote:
> Not sure if folks are interested in this or not, but it sure caused me some
> angst this morning. OSX has the same behaviour and also doesn't document
> it. I assume it has been that way for a long, long time.
>
> My first patch. Thanks for all the cool stuff :-)
>
> Index: bin/test/test.1
> ===================================================================
> RCS file: /cvs/src/bin/test/test.1,v
> retrieving revision 1.33
> diff -u -p -r1.33 test.1
> --- bin/test/test.1 16 Aug 2016 18:51:25 -0000 1.33
> +++ bin/test/test.1 1 Oct 2016 03:37:23 -0000
> @@ -92,7 +92,9 @@ exists and is a directory.
> .It Fl e Ar file
> True if
> .Ar file
> -exists (regardless of type).
> +exists, unless
> +.Ar file
> +is a dangling symbolic link.
Thanks, but I think that we document it. It seems unnecessary and
inconsistent to add that caveat only to -e. The manual says explicitly:
Symbolic links are followed for all primaries except -h and -L.
So if your file is a dangling symbolic link, it is followed, and since
the file it points to doesn't exist, the expression evaluates to false.
POSIX is also unambiguous about this behavior:
-e pathname
True if pathname resolves to an existing directory entry.
False if pathname cannot be resolved.
[...]
With the exception of the -h pathname and -L pathname primaries, if a
pathname argument is a symbolic link, test shall evaluate the
expression by resolving the symbolic link and using the file referenced
by the link.
> .It Fl f Ar file
> True if
> .Ar file
