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bash 2.04 scribbles over HOSTTYPE


From: Greg Hudson
Subject: bash 2.04 scribbles over HOSTTYPE
Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2001 14:25:45 -0400

(I'm not using the bashbug program because this behavior should be
easy to understand without knowing the details of how I observed it.)

Even if invoked as /bin/sh, bash 2.04 overwrites the HOSTTYPE
environment variable with a value like (on my system) "i386".  I
believe this does not conform to POSIX.2, and it breaks some shell
scripts I have written which export the HOSTTYPE environment variable
in one shell process and refer to it in another shell process.

In general, it is impossible to write shell scripts which continue to
work if new versions of the shell start invading the application
namespace in this way.  I realize csh derivatives have been using
HOSTTYPE for years, but thats no excuse for a /bin/sh to start
claiming it.



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