Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2007 09:22:44 -0800 From: Bill Campbell <freebsd@celestial.com> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org, Bill Campbell <freebsd@celestial.com> Subject: Re: [OT] Does "~" always point to $HOME? Message-ID: <20070126172244.GB6575@ayn.mi.celestial.com> In-Reply-To: <20070126160107.0e5c8646@loki.starkstrom.lan> References: <Pine.LNX.4.43.0701251138500.18233@hymn07.u.washington.edu> <ba29b9b40701252251p1e6df8f1xcded017655acbcb2@mail.gmail.com> <20070126070730.GA10081@ayn.mi.celestial.com> <45BA0E5A.6030503@gmail.com> <20070126160107.0e5c8646@loki.starkstrom.lan>
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On Fri, Jan 26, 2007, Joerg Pernfuss wrote: >On Fri, 26 Jan 2007 15:21:14 +0100 >Karol Kwiatkowski <karol.kwiat@gmail.com> wrote: > >> > While that's true for most shells, bash, csh, tcsh, etc., it >> > doesn't work on true Bourne /bin/sh shells (e.g. SCO OpenServer >> > 5.0.6a and earlier and probably others with Bell Labs ancestors). >> >> Not sure what I'm missing, is FreeBSD's /bin/sh shell not "true" >> Bourne Shell? Was it extended in some way from traditional one? > >FreeBSD /bin/sh is actually an ash, which roughly translates into >a POSIX shell with a few additions that do not break compatibility. >At least that is how I understood it. My point isn't whether the FreeBSD /bin/sh expands it, but that not all systems are FreeBSD, and that one can have problems on other *NIX systems. Knowing where there may be differences, and avoiding the assumptions that a program behaves the same on all systems, can help writing code that's portable without surprises. One of the major reasons I have been using GNU utilities on Unix systems for twenty-plus years, built with the ``g'' prefix, is to have a common set of programs which behave the same regardless of platform. Stallman would probably say I ran GNU/Xenix, GNU/SunOS, GNU/OpenServer, etc. Bill -- INTERNET: bill@Celestial.COM Bill Campbell; Celestial Software LLC URL: http://www.celestial.com/ PO Box 820; 6641 E. Mercer Way FAX: (206) 232-9186 Mercer Island, WA 98040-0820; (206) 236-1676 ``Most people, sometime in their lives, stumble across truth. Most jump up, brush themselves off, and hurry on about their business as if nothing had happened.'' - Sir Winston Churchill
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