Option "-n" not working reliably and poorly documented

[Ronny Standtke]

Hi

The "-n" option not seem to work. Example with a little stupid nonsense
script:
-----------
ronny@ronny-desktop:/tmp$ cat test.sh
#!/bin/sh
if [ $blah == "test"]
then
        echo "teste mich!"
fi
ronny@ronny-desktop:/tmp$ sh -n test.sh
ronny@ronny-desktop:/tmp$ sh test.sh
[: 5: missing ]
ronny@ronny-desktop:/tmp$
-----------

The missing whitespace was my most frequent error when I started writing
shell scripts because I come from whitespace agnostic programming
languages.

Another strange thing: The man page of bash does only implicitly mention
the "-n" option in the description of the "-D" option: "This implies the
-n option; no commands will be executed."

All in all it looks like the "-n" option is poorly documented and 
implementation is incomplete.

Regards

Ronny Standtke

-- 
Ronny Standtke                 Fachhochschule Nordwestschweiz
Dozent Medienpädagogik / ICT   Pädagogische Hochschule
Telefon: +41 32 627 92 47      Obere Sternengasse 7
Mobil  : +41 79 786 81 82      4502 Solothurn