Re: "unset" return value wrong

[Chet Ramey]

> The exit status of the "unset" shell built-in should be 0 if given any
> unsettable variable, whether or not the variable needed to be unset.

I disagree, and so do other versions of sh which claim POSIX
compliance that I was able to test (ksh93, FreeBSD sh, pdksh).  The
Solaris /bin/sh returns 0, but /usr/xpg4/bin/sh returns 1.

> In bash 2.04, unset returns 1 if the variable wasn't set to begin with.
> This isn't the correct criterion according to Posix, and it broke a
> shell script of mine that didn't expect that behavior.

The section of POSIX.2 to which I think you're referring says:

        Unsetting a variable or function that was not previously set
        shall not be considered an error and shall not cause the shell
        to abort.

I contend that this actually refers to the text at the beginning of
section 3.14, which says that the shell shall abort if a syntax error
is encountered in any of the special builtin utilities.

> Furthermore, "help unset" claims that PATH and IFS cannot be unset.
> After reading that, I would expect "unset PATH" to not unset PATH and
> to return 1.  Instead it does unset PATH and returns 0.

Thanks, this has been fixed.  It was a historical artifact.  PATH and
IFS are unsettable, unless they have been made readonly.

-- 
``The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.'' - Chaucer
( ``Discere est Dolere'' -- chet)

Chet Ramey, CWRU    chet@po.CWRU.Edu    http://cnswww.cns.cwru.edu/~chet/