BASH and POSIX (was: BASH and Posix Redirection.)

[Sven Mascheck]

chris.bitmead@health.gov.au wrote:

> Why must bash be a slave to POSIX when posix is dumb,

   (is it dumb?)

> and having the extension hurts nobody?

   (... they might very well do so, see below)

- The first question is: why POSIX?  It's about portability and bash
  "always" was aiming at this.  Old bourne shell alone is no reasonable
  way, although nowadays it's still very important when trying to be
  portable.  In the future, POSIX will eventually replace it.

  It's not really a question wether a detail is dumb, if your aim is
  compatibility.  Thus bash has an explicit POSIX mode.  BTW, this 
  is what you always overlooked/ignored/have not asked about...

  So the question might be how to behave in non POSIX mode, which you
  apparently mean.  (sorry, but i have no opinion here about CDPATH :).

- Instead, i'd like to "turn" your question around:

  What i was always interested in:  Why keep bash specific features at all,
  when being in _POSIX mode_?  The "danger" is that poeple still program bash
  scripts then (although POSIX scripts certainly always can be run by bash).
  Neither the FAQ nor POSIX.NOTES answer this.

Sven