Re: exec - interactive vs non-interactive shell

["Radoulov, Dimitre" <cichomitiko@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 01/06/2011 22:42, Peter Stephenson wrote:
> On Wed, 01 Jun 2011 21:55:04 +0200
> "Radoulov, Dimitre"<cichomitiko@xxxxxxxxx>  wrote:
> > zsh-4.3.11[t]% cat a_script
> > exec cat
> > ok
> > zsh-4.3.11[t]%
> >
> >
> > zsh-4.3.11[t]% zsh<   a_script
> > ok
> So cat has taken over stdin, as expected.


Yes,
ash, dash and bash, for example, behave differently (ksh and variants 
seem to behave like zsh).
Do you know if this behavior is defined by the POSIX standard?


> > zsh-4.3.11[t]% zsh -i<   a_script
> > zsh-4.3.11[t]%
> >
> >
> > No output with -i.
> You're confusing the effects of "zsh -i<a_script" with "zsh -i
> a_script".  The first one starts up zsh as an interactive shell, with a
> line editor, but with standard input (not commands, which are
> interactive) coming from a_script.  You'll find that prompt on the line
> after is inside the new interactive shell.  Try typing at this point:
>
> read
> print $REPLY
>
> You should see "exec ok".
>
> The rules for how zsh finds the commands and standard input are roughly:
>
> - Standard input is only redirected if you explicitly use a "<".
> (So "zsh a_script" leaves stdin where it is and cat hangs waiting for
> input.)  It's independent of interaction with the terminal for reading
> commands (though there's the more complicated issue of how the terminal
> gets set up in the first place).
>
> - If there's a script name, use that for commands, regardless of whether
> the shell is interactive or not.  (So "zsh -i a_script" behaves
> basically like without the -i, although you could have interactive shell
> commands such as vared in the script.)
>
> - If there's no script name and the shell is interactive, use the
> terminal for commands.
>
> - If there's no script name and the shell is not interactive, fall back
> to reading commands from standard input.  This is the only case (without
> making special arrangements) where commands and standard input come from
> the same channel.

If the shell is interactive, there's no script name nor explicit input 
redirection (<) ,
command and standard input come from the same channel too (the terminal),
or I'm missing something?



Thank you for the explanation!


Regards
Dimitre