> Two comments. > > 1) The shell is not in posix mode. Yep. According to my tests, it also fails like OP reported in posix mode:
| dualbus@dualbus ~ % bash -c $'for ((i=0;i<10000;i++)); do :; done\ntime' | | real 0m0.000s | user 0m0.000s | sys 0m0.000s | dualbus@dualbus ~ % bash --posix -c $'for ((i=0;i<10000;i++)); do :; done\ntime' | user 0m0.06s | sys 0m0.00s | dualbus@dualbus ~ % bash --posix -c $'head -c1000000 </dev/urandom >/dev/null\ntime' | user 0m0.00s | sys 0m0.09s | dualbus@dualbus ~ % bash -c $'head -c1000000 </dev/urandom >/dev/null\ntime' | | real 0m0.000s | user 0m0.000s | sys 0m0.000s | dualbus@dualbus ~ % bash -c $'time;ls' | bash: -c: line 0: syntax error near unexpected token `ls' | bash: -c: line 0: `time;ls' | dualbus@dualbus ~ % bash --posix -c $'time;ls' | bash: -c: line 0: syntax error near unexpected token `ls' | bash: -c: line 0: `time;ls' > 2) In non posix mode time with no arguments is not meaningful. Best I > can tell it always returns 0, I still maintain it should return an > error. > > # while :; do echo Hello; done > Let it run and run and run > # ^C > # time > > real 0m0.000s > user 0m0.000s > sys 0m0.000s > > > > Maybe it should be more like this: > > # time > Error, 'time' with no arguments is only meaningful in posix mode I agree with you on this. But, the thing is... it shouldn't be a syntax error, right? My opinion is that $ time bash: usage error: blah blah $ time; ls bash: usage error: blah blah foo bar baz Should be how bash treats this, even if time is a special keyword. Or... why not have time behave the same in non-posix mode?... backwards compatibility is not an issue, since it's not useful right now. And the posix mode behavior is kind of useful.
