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From: radzy@calma.UUCP (Tim Radzykewycz)
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Subject: Re: Re: In sh, is '[' a portable synonym
Message-ID: <54@calma.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 13-Nov-85 11:22:43 EST
Article-I.D.: calma.54
Posted: Wed Nov 13 11:22:43 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 18-Nov-85 06:02:41 EST
References: <313@bdaemon.UUCP> <13400016@mirror.UUCP> <132@oracle.UUCP> <63@hadron.UUCP>
Reply-To: radzy@calma.UUCP (Tim Radzykewycz)
Organization: GE/Calma Co., R&D Systems Engineering, Milpitas, CA
Lines: 24

In article <63@hadron.UUCP> jsdy@hadron.UUCP (Joseph S. D. Yao) writes:
>In article <132@oracle.UUCP> abbajay@oracle.UUCP (Dave Abbajay) writes:
>>I also have no REAL arguments against Guy's comments save one. '/bin/test'
>>is a *program* and '[]' is intrepreted by the shell in all Sys III (and
>>greater) Bourne shells.
>
>[Disclaimer:]  I don't have the sV Bourne shell code or the Korn
>shell code in front of me; however, I don't remember '[' being
>treated as a special command.  I do know that 'test' is linked
>to '['.
>References: VAX-11/780 running s5r1v1, s5r1v2, s5r2v1, s5r2v2.

A while back, the sysadm (somewhat junior) of a site I was working
on found the file '/bin/[', and thinking it was a junk file created
when something went wrong, he got rid of it.  All kinds of shell
scripts broke.  This is pretty conclusive evidence that '[' is
*not* treated specially, at least on the 4.1 (vax) system this
was on.

BTW: the sysadm was *me*.
-- 
Tim (radzy) Radzykewycz, The Incredible Radical Cabbage
	calma!radzy@ucbvax.ARPA
	{ucbvax,sun,csd-gould}!calma!radzy