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In-reply-to: <7740275E-77AA-45C1-B95E-C1F62D2AAB29@goldmark.org> (message from
	Jeffrey Goldberg on Sun, 11 Jan 2009 20:08:18 -0600)
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X-GPG-ID: 1024D/711752A0 2006-06-27 Karl Vogel <vogelke@pobox.com>
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Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2009 14:16:58 -0500 (EST)
From: vogelke+unix@pobox.com (Karl Vogel)
Subject: Re: bash versus sh test builtin
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>> On Sun, 11 Jan 2009 20:08:18 -0600, 
>> Jeffrey Goldberg <jeffrey@goldmark.org> said:

J> if [ $UID -ne 0 ] ; then ...
J> Does anyone have a recommendation of how to run this simple test in /bin/sh
J> and how to write tests reasonably portably?

   I think your best bet for comparisons like this is to use case.  I started
   doing that back in the days when '[' would start a separate program:

     case "$UID" in
       0) echo am root ;;
       *) echo not root ;;
     esac

   I use "test" for things relating to file access:

     die() {
         echo "$@" >& 2
         exit 1
     }

     test -f /etc/passwd || die "Your system is seriously hosed"

-- 
Karl Vogel                      I don't speak for the USAF or my company

If men ruled the world #12: Instead of wasting money on an expensive
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