From owner-freebsd-bugs Tue Dec 31 03:51:38 1996 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.4/8.8.4) id DAA25244 for bugs-outgoing; Tue, 31 Dec 1996 03:51:38 -0800 (PST) Received: from isbalham.ist.co.uk (isbalham.ist.co.uk [192.31.26.1]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.4/8.8.4) with ESMTP id DAA25239 for ; Tue, 31 Dec 1996 03:51:35 -0800 (PST) Received: from gid.co.uk (uucp@localhost) by isbalham.ist.co.uk (8.8.4/8.8.4) with UUCP id LAA26008; Tue, 31 Dec 1996 11:33:08 GMT Date: Tue, 31 Dec 1996 11:17:43 GMT Received: from [194.32.164.2] by seagoon.gid.co.uk; Tue, 31 Dec 1996 11:17:43 GMT X-Sender: rb@194.32.164.1 Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: freebsd-bugs@FreeBSD.org From: rb@gid.co.uk (Bob Bishop) Subject: Re: bin/2331: strange output of sh's pwd on symlinked directories Cc: Helbig@MX.BA-Stuttgart.De, roberto@keltia.freenix.fr, joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de (Joerg Wunsch), bde@zeta.org.au (Bruce Evans) Sender: owner-bugs@FreeBSD.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk At 10:30 am 31/12/96, J Wunsch wrote: >As Bruce Evans wrote: > >> >It is not really a bug, jsust use a modern shell :-) >> >> It is really a bug. sh's pwd used to be equivalent to /bin/pwd. Now >> it is broken after `cd symlink; cd ..'. > >That's not a bug. That's ksh compatible now, whether you like it or >not. :-} Since ksh is Posix, it cannot be a bug, by definition. :-P > >I always hated this ksh braindeadness where you gotta explicitly call >/bin/pwd if you want the ``canonical pathname''. However, since Posix >has sanctioned all bugfeatures of Mr. Korn, we have to live with this >situation anyway. Eh? Why does /bin/sh have to take this nonsense on board? > Our /bin/sh used to be one of the last remaining >shells where the output of the builtin pwd was still similar to >/bin/pwd (no surprise, since it did call /bin/pwd!). It's for reasons like this that no-one in their right mind uses anything except /bin/sh to execute scripts (POSIX notwithstanding). Heaven knows how many scripts in the world will break if this insanity is perpetuated. I think that having pwd != /bin/pwd for /bin/sh is a *very bad idea*. -- Bob Bishop (0118) 977 4017 international code +44 118 rb@gid.co.uk fax (0118) 989 4254 between 0800 and 1800 UK