Re: OSTYPE (etc.) is clobbered

[Chet Ramey]

> First, I can understand wanting to set this variable, but bash should
> not set the variable if it is already set. This is a design decision
> with which some may disagree

This seems reasonable; I will think about making the setting of
OSTYPE, HOSTTYPE, and MACHTYPE conditional on the variables not being
previously defined.

>but you cannot disagree with the second problem here:

I can and do.

> Second, when bash is run as sh (e.g., /bin/sh) it is supposed to
> behave as much as possible like the old Bourne Shell, yet bash2 still
> clobbers OSTYPE. Does POSIX define how OSTYPE is handled?

This is a misconception.  When called as sh, bash attempts to emulate
the *startup behavior* of historical versions of sh.  After that, it
runs in POSIX mode.  Since POSIX says nothing about OSTYPE and its
brethren, implementations are free to do as they wish.

Chet

-- 
``The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.'' - Chaucer
( ``Discere est Dolere'' -- chet)

Chet Ramey, CWRU    chet@po.CWRU.Edu    http://cnswww.cns.cwru.edu/~chet/