From owner-freebsd-stable  Thu Dec 23 11: 2:20 1999
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From: Sheldon Hearn <sheldonh@uunet.co.za>
To: Gerald Pfeifer <pfeifer@dbai.tuwien.ac.at>
Cc: Marcin Cieslak <saper@system.pl>, freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject: Re: /bin/test broken ? 
In-reply-to: Your message of "Thu, 23 Dec 1999 14:57:56 +0100."
             <Pine.GSO.4.20.9912231453570.10808-100000@alphard.dbai.tuwien.ac.at> 
Date: Thu, 23 Dec 1999 21:03:06 +0200
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On Thu, 23 Dec 1999 14:57:56 +0100, Gerald Pfeifer wrote:

> > What's _the_ standard? 
> 
> You would have to consult POSIX or whatever, I guess, but clearly the
> first variant is not portable (in practice) so one should refrain from
> using it anyway.

Not only is it not portable, but it's also not POSIX.2. :-)

The POSIX.2 Synopsis for test gives:

	test {expression}
	[  {expression} ]

While other vendors may have chosen to allow a mongrel of these two,
folks wishing to keep their scripts portable should refrain from using
such a hybrid.

Ciao,
Sheldon.


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