[ On Wednesday, June 12, 2002 at 11:47:23 (+0100), Ben Harris wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: /bin/sh fixes to make printf a builtin and 'fix' echo
>
> david@l8s.co.uk:
> > Still looks like at least two variants are required though!
> 
> Only if you believe that -e is still required.

You still don't need two variants to support '-e'.  As I've shown by
example already it can safely be treated as '-n' and only interpreted as
an option flag if it appears as the first command-line parameter.  I've
never seen it used with '-n' -- it is, after all, presumably an
alternative to '-n' (since with '-e' "echo" will presumably support
'\c').  However '-e' as an option flag should be a no-op in any
pragmatic implementation since '\' escapes should always be enabled.

> My opinion is that anyone
> using -e is depending on undocumented, non-standard behaviour, and deserves
> very little sympathy if it stops working.

The point is to make porting scripts painless, not to stick like
superglue to some single ivory-tower committee's view of how things
_should_ be in their view.

-- 
								Greg A. Woods

+1 416 218-0098;  <gwoods@acm.org>;  <g.a.woods@ieee.org>;  <woods@robohack.ca>
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