From: Kevin Korb <kmk@sanitarium.net>
To: Eric Blake <eblake@redhat.com>, dash@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [bug?] echo -n does not work as described
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2015 22:40:14 -0500 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <56440A1E.8070701@sanitarium.net> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <56440406.7000201@redhat.com>
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On 11/11/2015 10:14 PM, Eric Blake wrote:
> On 11/11/2015 06:56 PM, Kevin Korb wrote:
>> I am on dash version 0.5.8.2 on Gentoo Linux (USE=libedit
>> -static).
>>
>> The echo builtin does not work as described. In the man page:
>
> Which man page? Coreutils'?
I was quoting the dash man page. I did quote the result of the
coreutils version of echo (/bin/echo) which worked correctly.
> Read it further:
>
>> NOTE: your shell may have its own version of echo, which usually
>> super‐ sedes the version described here. Please refer to your
>> shell's docu‐ mentation for details about the options it
>> supports.
>
> By the way, 'echo -n' is non-portable, and POSIX says you should
> use 'printf' instead.
This isn't my problem. I am trying to use dash as a replacement for
/bin/sh and it is failing horribly. I am not the authors of the
problem scripts. Plus, frankly, it is absurd to require printf where
echo [-n] should work correctly according to the dash documentation.
> http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/echo.html
>
> A string to be written to standard output. If the first operand
> is -n, or if any of the operands contain a <backslash> character,
> the results are implementation-defined.
>
>> $ echo -n testing -n testing
>
> Dash's implementation-defined behavior for -n is to treat it the
> same as every other string. Thus, this is not a bug in dash, at
> least according to POSIX.
Either this is a bug in dash or in dash's man page. The man page is
clear about how echo and echo -n should work. But the reality is very
different.
>> This is causing me problems when I attempt to switch /bin/sh from
>> bash to dash.
This isn't stuff I have written. This is stuff that I am tired of
modifying to be dash compatible.
Either dash's echo command should operate as documented or the
documentation should be corrected.
> It's probably not the only bashism you've been relying on. You may
> want to try using checkbashisms
> (http://sourceforge.net/projects/checkbaskisms/) to help you find
> other portability pitfalls.
>
- --
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Kevin Korb Phone: (407) 252-6853
Systems Administrator Internet:
FutureQuest, Inc. Kevin@FutureQuest.net (work)
Orlando, Florida kmk@sanitarium.net (personal)
Web page: http://www.sanitarium.net/
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next prev parent reply other threads:[~2015-11-12 3:40 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 13+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2015-11-12 1:56 [bug?] echo -n does not work as described Kevin Korb
2015-11-12 3:14 ` Eric Blake
2015-11-12 3:40 ` Kevin Korb [this message]
2015-11-12 3:46 ` Kevin Korb
2015-11-12 8:35 ` Seb
2015-11-12 16:12 ` Kevin Korb
2015-11-12 21:24 ` Stephane Chazelas
2015-11-12 8:10 ` Bastian Bittorf
2015-11-12 16:11 ` Kevin Korb
2015-11-19 12:36 ` Bastian Bittorf
2015-11-12 10:03 ` Petr Šabata
2015-11-12 16:18 ` Kevin Korb
2015-11-12 16:55 ` Kevin Korb
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