Re: Proposed doc updates

[Ralf Wildenhues]

Hi Stepan,

* Stepan Kasal wrote on Thu, Jan 27, 2005 at 04:21:31PM CET:
> On Wed, Jan 26, 2005 at 06:41:39PM +0100, Ralf Wildenhues wrote:
> > an error with
> >   nonexistent 2> /dev/null
> ...
> > Does anybody know a shell which still outputs anything with this?
> 
> I think ash outputs an error message here.  And I think ash is the /bin/sh
> on some *BSD systems.

No, this is a misunderstanding (your statement is true, but not what I
wanted to know).  See below.

> Look at this patch (by Eric Blake):
> 
> http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/autoconf-patches/2004-12/msg00121.html
> 
> I believe the problem there was that when configure tried to run
> 
>       /bin/sh5 2>/dev/null
> 
> the /bin/sh still has printed something like:
> 
>       /bin/sh5: command not found

Yes.  ACK to all this.

My question was:  Are there any shells that have a problem with this:
  { nonexistent; } 2>/dev/null
? (important question!)


My comment was: Besides ash, some Bourne shells also output the error
with
  nonexistent 2>/dev/null
, but they do accept
  { nonexistent; } 2>/dev/null
and do not output anything with it.  They do fork for the { }, though.
Most newer shells don't fork for the { }, so that gives us a speed
advantage when using { ...; } rather than ( ...).

My other comment was:  nonexist_a_nt is a common typo (one which I tend
to make as well).

Did I make myself clear now?

Cheers,
Ralf