From owner-freebsd-standards Sat Oct 26 12:44:20 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-standards@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B65EF37B401; Sat, 26 Oct 2002 12:44:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: from thuvia.demon.co.uk (thuvia.demon.co.uk [193.237.34.248]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2C29A43E3B; Sat, 26 Oct 2002 12:44:17 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from mark@thuvia.demon.co.uk) Received: from dotar.thuvia.org (dotar.thuvia.org [10.0.0.4]) by phaidor.thuvia.org (8.12.3/8.12.3) with ESMTP id g9QJiFcF054243; Sat, 26 Oct 2002 20:44:15 +0100 (BST) (envelope-from mark@thuvia.demon.co.uk) Received: from dotar.thuvia.org (localhost [IPv6:::1]) by dotar.thuvia.org (8.12.6/8.12.6) with ESMTP id g9QJiEH5012647; Sat, 26 Oct 2002 20:44:14 +0100 (BST) (envelope-from mark@dotar.thuvia.org) Received: (from mark@localhost) by dotar.thuvia.org (8.12.6/8.12.6/Submit) id g9QJiErS012646; Sat, 26 Oct 2002 20:44:14 +0100 (BST) Date: Sat, 26 Oct 2002 20:44:14 +0100 (BST) From: Mark Valentine Message-Id: <200210261944.g9QJiErS012646@dotar.thuvia.org> In-Reply-To: <20021026143724.D47672@espresso.q9media.com> X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.6 beta(5) 10/07/98) To: Mike Barcroft Subject: Re: /usr/posix: a first cut Cc: freebsd-standards@freebsd.org Sender: owner-freebsd-standards@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG > From: Mike Barcroft > Date: Sat 26 Oct, 2002 > Subject: Re: /usr/posix: a first cut > I would prefer to have /usr/posix/bin and /usr/posix/man. I think > manuals will get too cluttered if we try to document two differing > utilities in one manual. I was hoping this wouldn't get that much out of hand; I see the differences being very small. Most users will never see the POSIX-related manual pages if they are separate. Do you know of any other systems which take this approach? I've sort of been following Solaris' style, which I've found to be effective. > I think we should suggest in posix(7) that users seeking conformant > utilities change their PATH and MANPATH. I explicitly didn't do that, because I think /usr/posix is there for script writers, not users. In fact, putting /usr/posix at the start of your path is more likely to _break_ the scripts you run. Portable scripts don't hardwire paths for standard executables, they rely on a reasonable default environment for the platform which behaves as that platform normally does (there are exceptions to this rule, of course). An example would be a script which knows that all its target platforms support a POSIX.1 expr(1) command, even if it's not the default behaviour: #!/bin/sh case `uname` in FreeBSD) expr=/usr/posix/expr;; SunOS) expr=/usr/xpg4/bin/expr;; *) expr=expr;; esac ... use $expr ... Note that the default in absence of any better knowledge is "hope and pray". Cheers, Mark. -- Mark Valentine, Thuvia Labs "Tigers will do ANYTHING for a tuna fish sandwich." Mark Valentine uses "We're kind of stupid that way." *munch* *munch* and endorses FreeBSD -- To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-standards" in the body of the message