Re: DOS path

[Paul Eggert]

> Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2002 14:49:01 +0000
> From: John Poltorak <address@hidden>

> > Again I must point out that the behaviour of ksh's echo could be
> > considered broken; it requires an option to behave 'normally'.
> 
> Is there a definitive view on this?

POSIX 1003.2-1992 says that the results of echo are undefined if the
first argument is '-n' or if any arguments contain a backslash.

POSIX 1003.1-2001 requires the System V behavior, in which '-n'
is not an option and in which escapes should be interpreted.
> 
> The OS/2 porter of KSH considers that the default mode for ECHO should be 
> to interpret escape characters rather than ignore them.

The OS/2 porter of KSH is correct; that's the only way to conform to
both 1003.2-1992 and 1003.1-2001.

Autoconf must be portable to older systems, though, so it should not
use either -n or backslashes.

(This is yet another reason for avoiding backslashes in file names.  :-)