[colug-432] Why Bourne Shell Compatible: Portability

[Chris Clonch]

 On Wed, 10 Aug 2011 09:50:30 -0400, Richard Troth wrote:
> And then Chris mentions DASH.  That's only one of many places where
> one cannot ASSume that BASH will be the default shell ... or even
> present.  My world is mostly Linux ... MOSTLY.  I've got a FreeBSD
> jail which is my primary external server.  /bin/sh on that system is
> Berzerkeley Bourne, not BASH.  From the man page, they are moving
> toward compliance with "IEEE Std 1003.2 (``POSIX.2'') specification
> for the shell".  And there are others (eg: AIX, Solaris, USS).  And I
> have one or two Debian (Ubuntu) systems, Linux, but not BASH, dash it
> all!  (Been listening to too much Absolute Radio over IPv6, sorry.
> British accent stuck in my head!)
>
> If you need a certain BASHism, use it.  No shame in that.  But think
> about it first.  Might be that you'd really rather get it done with
> Python or Ruby or Tcl or some such.
>
> -- R;   <><

 I was shocked when I discovered that /bin/sh linked to something other 
 than the bourne shell.  This small discovery later lead to my 
 understanding that practically all Linux distro's seem do this.  I guess 
 it makes sense as most *sh shells are backwards complaint with sh.  But 
 my assumption that shebanging /bin/sh got me the plain ole original is 
 not correct.  And, well, we all know what happens when you assume...

 -Chris