Jason McIntyre writes:
> On Sun, Jun 16, 2024 at 03:05:24AM -0300, Crystal Kolipe wrote:
> > On Sat, Jun 15, 2024 at 06:45:21PM -0500, Tim Chase wrote:
> > > According to
> > >
> > > $ man [ | grep -A4 -e "-L.*f"
> > > -L file
> > > True if file exists and is a symbolic link. This operator is for
> > > compatibility purposes. Do not rely on its existence; use -h
> > > instead.
> >
> > There is definitely a discrepency between manual and source, because the
> > source contains a comment saying that -h is for backwards compatibility:
> >
> > {"-h", FILSYM, UNOP}, /* for backwards compat */
> >
> > and that comment has been there since the code was imported to NetBSD in
> > revision 1.13 in 1994.
When test's -h option was first added to OpenBSD's tree in 1995
that was the option marked as existing only for compatibility
purposes, this was switched in 2003:
Changes since 1.16: +6 -6 lines
encourage people to use -h rather than -L;
document -L as compatibility option;
slight sync with NetBSD description;
ok otto@ millert@
I'd guess there was some discussion about it but I can't be bothered
to look for it.
The ksh manpage lists both -h and -L without prioritising either.
I think it's safe to say we can rely on both flags existing now in
all variations of the tool. Supporting both is what? Half a dozen
opcodes?
[[ is more expressive anyway.
Matthew
ps. While we're on the subject, perl calls its (only) variant -l. ]]
--- /usr/src/bin/test/test.1 Sat Aug 19 05:23:44 2023
+++ /tmp/test.1 Sun Jun 16 15:00:02 2024
@@ -118,11 +118,6 @@
True if
.Ar file
exists and is a symbolic link.
-This operator is for compatibility purposes.
-Do not rely on its existence;
-use
-.Fl h
-instead.
.It Fl n Ar string
True if the length of
.Ar string
