On 1/6/20 4:29 PM, Dave Horsfall wrote:
> On Mon, 6 Jan 2020, arnold@skeeve.com wrote:
>
>> Would anyone who uses Bash regularly, both interactively and
>> for scripting, really want to go back to using the V7 sh
>> for production work?
>
> I have never used all the fancy stuff in BASH such as the arithmetic
> functions; I still use "expr" etc for portability.
Portability to what? The POSIX $((...)) arithmetic expansion is widely
implemented and near-universally available.
Some of the other things are more esoteric, but you should be able to
increase your expectation to POSIX features and still be sufficiently
portable.
Huh.
I've been in this "use the old stuff for portability" camp for some time, but now that you mention it....I can't think of any systems I use that require resorting to old-style shell-isms.
What an interesting epiphany. It reminds me of the time when first I realized that continuing to write K&R-style C was no longer necessary, as everything that I used had an ANSI-compatible compiler and supported function prototypes.
Seeing backticks in the rearview mirror is a welcome change.
- Dan C.