From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Malcolm Kay Subject: Re: if then elif then else fi -- Problem report Date: Tue, 29 Jun 2010 10:38:31 +0930 Message-ID: <201006291038.31206.malcolm.kay@internode.on.net> References: <201006282226.22001.malcolm.kay@internode.on.net> <4C28A1FA.1090306@redhat.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-6" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: Received: from ipmail04.adl6.internode.on.net ([150.101.137.141]:24963 "EHLO ipmail04.adl6.internode.on.net" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751131Ab0F2BIf (ORCPT ); Mon, 28 Jun 2010 21:08:35 -0400 In-Reply-To: <4C28A1FA.1090306@redhat.com> Content-Disposition: inline Sender: dash-owner@vger.kernel.org List-Id: dash@vger.kernel.org To: Eric Blake Cc: dash@vger.kernel.org Eric, Thanks for the clarification. I had assumed that 'dash' aimed to be a faster replacement for the classical Bourne shell 'sh' as implemented in BSD systems, and this seemed to be confirmed when all the man pages I've been able to find were more or less direct copies of BSD 'sh' pages. As it is I feel the man pages should not only be fixed in this respect, but also such differences to classical 'sh' implementations should be high lighted. On Mon, 28 Jun 2010 10:52 pm, Eric Blake wrote: > . . . > > Therefore, the bug is in the man page. Per POSIX, > http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/V3_ch >ap02.html#tag_18_09_03 "A list is a sequence of one or more > AND-OR lists separated by the operators ';' and '&' and > optionally terminated by ';' , '&' , or ." While I agree with your conclusions, I would note that POSIX defines "if ... else etc." in terms of 'compound_list' rather than 'list' so the above definition of 'list' is not really relevant. By my reading of your reference it seems POSIX defines 'list' and 'compound_list' independently but fails to clarify the difference if any. Malcolm