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From: martin@mwtech.UUCP (Martin Weitzel)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.shell
Subject: Re: Question about 'test'
Message-ID: <987@mwtech.UUCP>
Date: 3 Dec 90 13:30:51 GMT
References: <ger.659126250@prisma> <1990Nov21.191638.19469@athena.mit.edu> <QPLIU.90Nov29205347@phoenix.princeton.edu> <1779@seti.inria.fr>
Reply-To: martin@mwtech.UUCP (Martin Weitzel)
Organization: MIKROS Systemware, Darmstadt/W-Germany
Lines: 38

In article <1779@seti.inria.fr> deschamp@seti.inria.fr writes:
:
:In article <QPLIU.90Nov29205347@phoenix.princeton.edu>,
:qpliu@phoenix.princeton.edu (q.p.liu) writes:
:
:|> trying /bin/[ shows that it only checks if argv[0] == "[".
:
:   *Never* generalize :-). On my workstation (Sun 3/60 under SunOS 4.0.3):
:	$ test
:	$ [
:	test: ] missing
:
:What I do not understand is this:
:	$ '['
:	test: ] missing
:	$ PATH=/bin '['
:	test: ] missing
:	$ /bin/[
:	$
:
:Why no complaint in the last case ?

This shows exactly what original poster tried to say (as I understood).
To make it a bit clearer, the source-code of "test" must look like

	if (!strcmp(argv[0], "[")) {
		if (strcmp(argv[--argc], "]") {
			/* complain about missing "]" and exit */
			.....
		}
	}
	/* parse arguments; run tests as required */
	.....

In your last experiment argv[0] is "/bin/[" and not simply "[", hence no
comlaint.
-- 
Martin Weitzel, email: martin@mwtech.UUCP, voice: 49-(0)6151-6 56 83