Re: Autotest test suite size

[Paul Eggert]

Derek Robert Price <derek@ximbiot.com> writes:

> How many systems will we lose if we start using shell functions?

Nobody important will lose.  The few hosts that lack them
(e.g., SunOS 4.x) can import bash or pdksh and then use that.
SunOS 4.1.3 already needs to do this anyway, because of a bad
bug in its here-document handling, a bug that Sun won't fix.

So I'd say go for it, and assume shell functions.

Mark D. Baushke sugguested having shell scripts as a substitute.  That
would work, but it's a poor substitute.  Shell functions can do things
that scripts can't, e.g. they can exit from the calling shell.  It's
not worth wasting our time worrying about porting to such a
substitute.  Let's just use shell functions.