Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!bfmny0!tneff
From: tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET (Tom Neff)
Newsgroups: comp.sources.d
Subject: Re: Perl scripts on systems without "#!"
Message-ID: <14942@bfmny0.UU.NET>
Date: 21 Nov 89 05:41:44 GMT
References: <255C7F44.171@ateng.com> <5935@cbnewsh.ATT.COM> <2568811E.264@ateng.com>
Reply-To: tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET (Tom Neff)
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In article <2568811E.264@ateng.com> chip@ateng.com (Chip Salzenberg) writes:
>After discussion, it seems that a script can be identified in only one
>portable way: A script with ":" as the first character is always run by
>the Bourne shell. Anything else is non-portable. Am I right?

Not really...

Korn shell (with the default "SHELL=/bin/ksh" set) will execute a script
with ":" as the first character under Korn rather than Bourne.  Of course,
if you're sure it's one of Korn OR Bourne, the $RANDOM trick will pick 'em.

The bottom line is there's no portable standard.  BSD mavens get so used
to their #! hack they assume it's universal, but it ain't.

I suspect there's an elegant hack though, I just haven't thought of it.
-- 
"Take off your engineering hat   | "The filter has      | Tom Neff
and put on your management hat." | discreting sources." | tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET