Re: cd with empty argument does not conform to POSIX.1-2024 (Was: inherit OLDPWD from environment variable)

> The current behavior is to do nothing and exit with a zero status.

For comparison purposes, note that this is also the current behavior of bash, even in POSIX mode. Also dash. Whereas ksh does report an error ("bad directory") and exit with status 1.

On Mon, Jul 22, 2024 at 11:08 PM Lawrence Velázquez <larryv@xxxxxxx> wrote:

On Fri, Jul 19, 2024, at 10:46 PM, Lawrence Velázquez wrote:
> If we're going to begin importing OLDPWD from the environment, we
> might as well align with other shells for consistency, which means
> accepting a zero-length value as is.

Speaking of zero-length values vis-à-vis cd:

% cd ""

The current behavior is to do nothing and exit with a zero status.
This is allowed by POSIX.1-2018 [1]:

If _directory_ is an empty string, the results are unspecified.

However, it is not allowed by the newly released POSIX.1-2024 [2]:

If _directory_ is an empty string, _cd_ shall write a
diagnostic message to standard error and exit with non-zero
status.

I don't have strong feelings about changing the default behavior,
but it would be useful to update POSIX_CD at least (and thus ksh/sh
emulation).

[1]: https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/cd.html
[2]: https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9799919799/utilities/cd.html

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