Re: rm -f # no more args failure?

[Bob Friesenhahn]

On Mon, 13 Dec 2021, Karl Berry wrote:

>    bf> I thought that systems deriving from OpenSolaris (e.g. Illumos,
>    ...
>    However, testing in an empty directory on a system without the
>    upated ksh93 this looks ok to me:
>
> Bob, what you wrote before (approx. a year ago) is here:
> https://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=42529
>
> Ending with:
>  Behavior of ksh93 (which has a bug) appears to depend on the PATH
>  setting so it will behave differently if /usr/xpg4/bin or
>  /usr/xpg6/bin appear in the path.
>
> Maybe that is why you didn't see the behavior just now?

Yes, that must be the case.  I updated my PATH to avoid the behavior.

> In any case, if a broken "rm -f" still exists in a free system as late
> as last year, it seems premature to me to force this change now.

It does still exist in many deployed systems which have not yet been 
updated.  In a year or two there will be fewer systems which lack the 
updated ksh93.

> I grant Moritz's point that the ubiquitious "test -z ... || rm ..."
> adds noise when trying to understand Automake recipes, but IMHO that is
> not enough reason to induce this incompatibility.

The cost is more a matter of lost execution time due to the fork/exec 
than annoying noise.

Bob
--
Bob Friesenhahn
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