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Re: realpath(3), symlinks, '..' components, and the ':A' word modifier



On Tue, 05 Jul 2016 04:57:56 +0000 Daniel Shahaf <d.s@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

DS> Feedback is sought for a proposed behaviour change to the shell.
DS> 
DS> Currently, the ':a' word modifier removes '..' component from a path —
DS> using a purely syntactic transformation, i.e., without consulting the
DS> filesystem at all — and ':A' does the same and then resolves symlinks
DS> [so no path component in the result is a symlink].
DS> 
DS> It has been proposed to change the semantics of :A to resolve symlinks
DS> first and '..' components second, like the realpath(3) library function
DS> does.
DS> 
DS> Under the incumbent semantics, $foo:A denotes the same file as $foo:a
DS> (but not necessarily the same file as $foo).  Under the proposed
DS> semantics, $foo:A denotes the same file as $foo (but not necesarily the
DS> same file as $foo:a).
DS> 
DS> Would this change be a good idea?

 Hello,

 I am not sure why would this be a good idea, the only argument for it I
see is compatibility with realpath(), but how much does it really matter?
There would seem to be quite a few flags/modifiers not corresponding to any
C library functions, so this doesn't seem like such an egregious exception.

 But this change would be backwards incompatible, if only marginally, and
my personal test for making breaking changes is whether I could see myself
justifying them reasonably well to someone whose script has got broken
after updating the shell. If you imagine yourself in such a situation, what
would your explanation be? I don't think that "we decided to make it
compatible with realpath(3)" quite cuts it. But this is just my personal
opinion, of course (and, FWIW, I don't think I personally have any script
which could be broken by this change anyhow).

 Regards,
VZ

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