Hi! Thought I'd forward this upstream, considering I already tested on current git, and it's pretty grave. https://bugs.debian.org/1017531, trimmed down a bit, follows: ----- Forwarded message from наб ----- Subject: Bug#1017531: dash: for/while/if suppress errors from redirections with -e, POSIX violation Dear Maintainer, On current git (057cd650a4edd5856213d431a974ff35c6594489) and 0.5.11.5 the following holds: -- >8 -- $ ./src/dash -ec 'while :; do :; done < /ENOENT; echo uhoh' ./src/dash: 1: cannot open /ENOENT: No such file uhoh $ ./src/dash -ec 'for _ in :; do :; done < /ENOENT; echo uhoh' ./src/dash: 1: cannot open /ENOENT: No such file uhoh $ ./src/dash -ec 'if :; then :; fi < /ENOENT; echo uhoh' ./src/dash: 1: cannot open /ENOENT: No such file uhoh -- >8 -- The correct output, as demonstrated by bash, is: -- >8 -- $ bash -ec 'while :; do :; done < /ENOENT; echo uhoh' bash: line 1: /ENOENT: No such file or directory $ bash -ec 'for _ in :; do :; done < /ENOENT; echo uhoh' bash: line 1: /ENOENT: No such file or directory $ bash -ec 'if :; then :; fi < /ENOENT; echo uhoh' bash: line 1: /ENOENT: No such file or directory -- >8 -- This is a POSIX violation, and quite a grave one at that: set -e is oft[1] used to guard against precisely this type of error! The same happens if set -e is executed. All quotes POSIX.1, Issue 7, TC2: sh, OPTIONS: > The -a, -b, -C, -e, -f, -m, -n, -o option, -u, -v, and -x options > are described as part of the set utility in Special Built-In > Utilities. set, DESCRIPTION, -e: > When this option is on, when any command fails (for any of the > reasons listed in Consequences of Shell Errors or by returning an > exit status greater than zero), the shell immediately shall exit, as > if by executing the exit special built-in utility with no arguments, > with the following exceptions: > > 1. The failure of any individual command in a multi-command pipeline > shall not cause the shell to exit. Only the failure of the > pipeline itself shall be considered. > 2. The -e setting shall be ignored when executing the compound list > following the while, until, if, or elif reserved word, a pipeline > beginning with the ! reserved word, or any command of an AND-OR > list other than the last. > 3. If the exit status of a compound command other than a subshell > command was the result of a failure while -e was being ignored, > then -e shall not apply to this command. XCU, 2.9.4: Shell Command Language, Shell Commands, Compound Commands: The while Loop: > The format of the while loop is as follows: > > while compound-list-1 > do > compound-list-2 > done (until is equivalent). The if Conditional Construct: > The format for the if construct is as follows: > > if compound-list > then > compound-list > [elif compound-list > then > compound-list] ... > [else > compound-list] > fi It follows, therefore, that * Exception 1. does not apply as there is no pipeline * Exception 2. does not apply, as the redirection does /not/ follow "while" or "if" directly and is /not/ part of the conditional compound-list * in the "for" case, there is no such provision, so this is likely not a confusion w.r.t. the conditional compound-lists * Exception 3. does not apply as -e was not being ignored while the compound commands were being executed (indeed, the compound commands do not run at all, as evidenced by the program terminating) [1]: https://salsa.debian.org/glibc-team/glibc/-/merge_requests/6#note_329899 ----- End forwarded message ----- Best, наб