Re: dash drops exported bash functions

[Makarius <makarius@sketis.net>]

On Thu, 11 Feb 2016, Makarius wrote:

> I am a long-term user of GNU bash who is depending on the "export -f" feature 
> of that shell (in an application that is on the free market for decades). The 
> bash guys turn a shell function "foo" into the environment variable 
> "BASH_FUNC_foo%%" and hope to be able to pick it up later on.
>
> Dash gets into this game, because Ubuntu and Debian have chosen to make it 
> the default for /bin/sh some years ago. This means that typical "system" 
> invocations of Unix tools and libraries are now going through dash: /bin/sh 
> -c is often seen in practice instead of more delicate execve invocations.
>
> This means with /bin/sh -> dash users have no proper chance to avoid it. 
> Sitting right there in the center /bin/sh, dash acquires special 
> responsibilities to play nice with other shells.

After reading the official (!) sources of bash-4.3, I've found out the 
following: Not the bash guys are introducing this ill-formed name 
decoration "%%", but the Debian guys. See 
http://sourcesdev.debian.net/patches/bash/4.3-14/bash43-027.diff

This means dash is not working against bash, but against Debian. Or 
rather: Debian is working against themselves and their users.


 	Makarius