Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!apple!usc!orion.cf.uci.edu!uci-ics!zardoz!tgate!ka3ovk!drilex!axiom!insyte!m2
From: m2@insyte (Mike Arena)
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: Case statements in Bourne shell
Message-ID: <1989Jun21.180116.18294@insyte>
Date: 21 Jun 89 18:01:16 GMT
Organization: Innovative Systems Techniques (INSYTE)
Lines: 26


    On HP-UX, it seems that the case statement doesn't function correctly.
(Or, at least, not the same way it is used in the C news scripts.)

    The problem is with case statements of the form:
    	case "$foo" in
    	"")	...
    	*)	...
    	esac
If the variable foo is not set or is null then the first choice ("") should
fire but it doesn't.  If you change the first line to:
	case $foo in
then it works!?!?!

    I changed all of the files in /bin and $NEWSBIN so that they work.
However, I would like to know if our Bourne shell is broken or if the scripts
are written incorrectly.  By the way, the following produces the correct
result:
	if [ "$foo" = "" ]
	then
		echo "It works"
	fi
-- 
Michael J. Arena  (617) 965 8450    | UUCP: ...harvard!linus!axiom!insyte!m2
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