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From: Malcolm Kay <malcolm.kay@internode.on.net>
To: dash@vger.kernel.org
Subject: if then elif then else fi -- Problem report
Date: Mon, 28 Jun 2010 22:26:21 +0930	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <201006282226.22001.malcolm.kay@internode.on.net> (raw)

I notice that 'dash' fails on many scripts that ran okay with
the traditional Bourne shell 'sh'.

On closer examination I find that it does not conform to any
of the man pages that I've been able to find for 'dash'.

Should I create a problem report? Where should I send it?

The particular version is dash-0.5.5.1 running on
FreeBSD xi.home 8.0-RELEASE FreeBSD 8.0-RELEASE #0: 
Sat Nov 21 15:48:17 UTC 2009 

I have a report that the same trouble occurs in the 'dash'
as shipped with Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx.

The problem is that 'dash' bombs out with an empty list in:

if ...
then
  list
elif ...
then
  list
fi

or in:

if ...
then
  list
else
  list
fi

The latter gives for example:
  Syntax error: "else" unexpected.

Yet the man pages clearly state that a list consists of zero 
or more commands --
<quote>
Lists -- Generally Speaking
     A list is a sequence of zero or more commands separated by 
newlines,
     semicolons, or ampersands, and optionally terminated by one 
of these
     three characters.
</quote>

Should I create a problem report? Where should I send it?

Cheers,

Malcolm


             reply	other threads:[~2010-06-28 13:01 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 7+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2010-06-28 12:56 Malcolm Kay [this message]
2010-06-28 13:22 ` if then elif then else fi -- Problem report Eric Blake
2010-06-29  1:08   ` Malcolm Kay
2010-06-29 12:56     ` Eric Blake
2010-07-04 21:50     ` Sven Mascheck
2010-07-06  7:48       ` Malcolm Kay
2010-07-06 20:49         ` Sven Mascheck

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