Re: bash should not alter PATH with 'command -p'

[Stephen Dowdy]

Chet,

Thanks for the response!  It's always fun trying to figure out what POSIX means.  I'm sure there's people who probably rely on the consequences of an altered PATH, too, so i don't expect you can make anyone happy whatever happens here.  (I would guess that a "reasonable" compromise might be to at least change the behaviour under 'bash --posix' or bash as /bin/sh, though that wouldn't help in the particular case affecting my script.

thanks again,

--stephen

On Tue, Jun 2, 2015 at 8:56 AM, Chet Ramey <chet.ramey@case.edu> wrote:

On 5/28/15 3:59 PM, sdowdy@rap.ucar.edu wrote:

> Bash Version: 4.3
> Patch Level: 30
> Release Status: release
>
> Description:
>

> 'command -p'
>     Ref:http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009696699/utilities/command.html
>
>     "... -p Perform the command search using a default value for PATH that is guaranteed to find all of the standard utilities. ..."
>
>     The way i read that is:
>         "search for a command only in a default PATH location, then invoke it (not altering user environment in the process)"
>     The way 'bash' seems to be looking at that is:
>         "set the user's PATH to a default value, then invoke"

Kind of.  It's more like `command -p foo args' is turned into
PATH=stdpath foo args
where the new PATH survives only for the duration of the command.  It's
probably not the spirit of the -p option, though it's been this way for
many years.  I will take a look and see what can be done.

Chet

--
``The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.'' - Chaucer
                 ``Ars longa, vita brevis'' - Hippocrates
Chet Ramey, ITS, CWRU    chet@case.edu    http://cnswww.cns.cwru.edu/~chet/

--

Stephen Dowdy  -  Systems Administrator  -  NCAR/RAL
303.497.2869   -  sdowdy@ucar.edu        -  http://www.ral.ucar.edu/~sdowdy/