Re: fd leak with {fd}>

[Sam Liddicott]

On Mon, Nov 26, 2012 at 5:02 PM, Chet Ramey <chet.ramey@case.edu> wrote:

> On 11/26/12 9:26 AM, Sam Liddicott wrote:
>
> >     It seems that ksh93 behaves just like bash in this regard....
> >     Well, as I don't use it I don't really care, but I vote for this as a
> >     bug as I fail to see the benefit of this behavior as i find it
> useless
> >     and not consistent with the normal redirection.
> >
> >
> >
> > And also potentially renders the feature useless.
>
> OK, so how does a misunderstanding in how a feature works render it
> useless?  Maybe better documentation is enough to make the features
> clear.
>

I explained how in the lines of my response that you deleted.

It is potentially useless because:

1. it is non-obvious, most users will not expect this behaviour (unless
already initiated into the secret) and so will not try to get that benefit.
2. it is an unexpected side effect and will do something which is not
expected, and be widely and "wrongly" labelled as buggy or unreliable by
misunderstanding users and therefore damage the bash reputation.
3. there already exists simple and explicit way to get the supposed benefit
using the existing mechanism "exec"

Certainly better documentation is required as a defense against the wrong
understanding being given, but users will still not expect this subtle
different and will not naturally fall to this interpretation or expect
therefore that there is any need to read the documentation.

I fear that the better documentation merely will serve as an excuse for
unexpected behaviour of a confusing and not-needed side-feature of an
important feature.

Sam