Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!convex!killer!vector!rpp386!jfh
From: jfh@rpp386.Dallas.TX.US (The Beach Bum)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: make importing SHELL
Message-ID: <7350@rpp386.Dallas.TX.US>
Date: 30 Sep 88 22:56:33 GMT
References: <452@alice.marlow.uucp> <67870@sun.uucp> <67925@sun.uucp> <128@cetia.UUCP> <13753@mimsy.UUCP> <4147@bsu-cs.UUCP>
Reply-To: jfh@rpp386.Dallas.TX.US (The Beach Bum)
Organization: River Parishes Programming, Dallas TX
Lines: 27

In article <4147@bsu-cs.UUCP> dhesi@bsu-cs.UUCP (Rahul Dhesi) writes:
>In article <13753@mimsy.UUCP> chris@mimsy.UUCP (Chris Torek) writes:
>>More generally, the problem is that the environment variable $SHELL has
>>the meaning `user's preferred shell'...
>
>I think the problem is that $SHELL exists at all.  It's a poor
>substitute for the #! in 4.3BSD.

$SHELL has more uses than running shell scripts, and does not in fact
replace the #! mechanism.

$SHELL is useful for programs which support escapes to the user's shell
and shell commands from within the program.  in those situations the user
should get the desired shell and #! would not have added in doing the
right thing.

#! is used to select the correct shell interpreter for a given shell
script.  in this case $SHELL may [ and probably will since murphy's
law dictates it is so ] be different than the shell interpreter which
is being used.

the two have nothing to do with each other.
-- 
John F. Haugh II (jfh@rpp386.Dallas.TX.US)                   HASA, "S" Division

      "Why waste negative entropy on comments, when you could use the same
                   entropy to create bugs instead?" -- Steve Elias