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From: scs@lokkur.dexter.mi.us (Steve Simmons)
Newsgroups: news.software.b,unix-pc.general
Subject: Re: cnews on a 3B1 with ksh
Message-ID: <1990May26.161226.1892@lokkur.dexter.mi.us>
Date: 26 May 90 16:12:26 GMT
References: <1990May22.212714.6570@bagend.uucp> <1990May23.190938.16011@shibaya.lonestar.org> <286@sphere.UUCP>
Organization: Inland Sea
Lines: 20

ruck@sphere.UUCP (John R Ruckstuhl Jr) writes:

>With all due respect to Mr Wall, when I last used "Configure" on an AT&T
>3B1, it informed me (correctly) that "#! /bin/sh" didn't work, but
>misled me by saying that ": use /bin/sh" did work.  (This Configure was
>bundled with rn patchlevel ?40?)

>Isn't it easy to test?  Invoke a script like
>    : use /bin/sh	# or whatever you think *might* work
>    ps
>from whatever shells you hope will respect that first line, and examine
>output.  This is how I proved to myself that ": use /bin/sh" doesn't 
>work with the Korn Shell I use on the 3B1.

The way Larry puts it is misleading.  The test being performed is not
"does ': <program>' make '<program>' execute this shell file", but rather
"does a line starting with ':' make the bourne shell execute this shell
file".  ':' is 'always true' in bourne shells, and on many systems that
normally default execution to the users' shell, this will give you a
bourne execution instead.