Re: Syntax error: Bad substitution

[Mike McCarty <Mike.McCarty@sbcglobal.net>]

Cristi Mitrana wrote:
> On 10/30/06, Ralph Alvy <ralvy@warpmail.net> wrote:
> 
>> Cristi Mitrana wrote:
> 
> [..]
> 
>> >
>> > That is because the new Ubuntu release uses dash instead of bash for
>> > /bin/sh and hence all bash constructs are not supported.
>> >
>> Isn't that a rather severe change?
>>
> 
> It is actually, since dash is just a minimal POSIX shell without all
> the features that bash has it.
> Any script that uses bash constructs should have #!/bin/bash at the
> beginning instead of #!/bin/sh. It's more of an annoyance this days,
> at least on linux, because bash is always available in any distro and
> it is the default shell.

Umm, I believe that all current releases of Linux have

$ ls -l /bin/sh
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root 4 Oct 20  2004 /bin/sh -> bash

AND bash also behaves somewhat differently when invoked
as sh.

IMO, use of bash-specific features in released scripts is
a bad idea, anyway. It results in extra maintenance.

Mike
-- 
p="p=%c%s%c;main(){printf(p,34,p,34);}";main(){printf(p,34,p,34);}
This message made from 100% recycled bits.
You have found the bank of Larn.
I can explain it for you, but I can't understand it for you.
I speak only for myself, and I am unanimous in that!