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From: gmp@rayssd.UUCP (Gregory M. Paris)
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Subject: Re: Please do NOT use "/bin/test" as a command name
Message-ID: <1615@rayssd.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 10-Dec-85 20:42:49 EST
Article-I.D.: rayssd.1615
Posted: Tue Dec 10 20:42:49 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 12-Dec-85 04:47:55 EST
References: <313@bdaemon.UUCP> <13400016@mirror.UUCP> <1016@sdcsla.UUCP> <1019@utcs.uucp>
Sender: gmp@rayssd.UUCP (Gregory M. Paris @ Raytheon Co., Portsmouth RI)
Organization: Raytheon Co., Portsmouth RI
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> No, no, no. Do not use absolute paths for test, mv, cp, or
> anything else. Least of all in shell files.
> 
> Sure, once in a while a new user will make a program called `test'
> and get confused. Some people even do it twice (I did). Most
> people don't do it a third time.

As you mentioned, this kind of problem crops up not only with
"test" but with many of the oft-used UNIX utilities.  For those of
us that support a user community of hundreds, even one or two "custom"
utility problems per user can become quite a time consuming hassle.
Just about any shell script can be broken with custom utilities, and
I certainly don't expect every user to have the savvy to figure out
which ones his/her new "rm" command is going to break (try rm -i -f).

There's more than a speed advantage to including full pathnames,
and only very minor portability problems associated with the practice.
I'm not saying that you *must* or even *should* include full pathnames,
but I disagree completely with your saying *never*!

As a compromise, how about setting PATH at the beginning of the script?
-- 

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||  Greg Paris             {allegra,linus,raybed2,ccice5,brunix}!rayssd!gmp  ||
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