Shell programming style -- a plea for better shell scripts
Guy Harris
guy at rlgvax.UUCP
Sat Feb 11 08:03:15 AEST 1984
A couple of minor points:
1) /bin/[ should be linked to /bin/test (on non-USG systems) in order to make
if [ "$1" = "foo ]
then
...
else
...
fi
work; I have seen systems in which /bin/test (which is documented in the V7
manual) works but /bin/[ (which isn't documented, but works if the link is
made) doesn't.
2) The "#" comment convention is only in the 4.xBSD and USG shells; the
standard V7 shell only implements ":" comments - NOTE that it's not
a real comment, but a command which throws its arguments away and returns
an "exit status" of 0 (which is why "while :" works). You can't say
things like
: This isn't valid
because the shell gets upset at the unbalanced single quote.
Guy Harris
{seismo,ihnp4,allegra}!rlgvax!guy
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