/etc/profile uses 'print' to find TMPDIR

[haubi]

Hi,

in /etc/profile, there is some code to set TMPDIR to a reasonable value.

This code uses print to check for a specific directory.

With /bin/ksh, print is a shell-builtin similar to echo.

But for bash, print is not a shell-builtin, so PATH is searched for print,
resulting to use '/dev/fs/C/WINDOWS/system32/print.exe' here.

Is there a specific reason to not use the shell-noop ":" to create an empty file ?

    if [ -d "${_i}" ]; then
				

[jerker_back]

Or, since the code searches for these environment variables

INTERIX_TMPDIR
				

[haubi]

Ehm, no - I'm happy with the outcome of TMPDIR=/tmp.

I just want to point out that use of 'print', which may result to the use of 'print.exe'.

What my troubles have been:

I have some script to set up environment for a cron-job, which sources /etc/profile prior to set some additional variables.

Now, when I sourced this script within my login-bash to get the additional variables, sourcing /etc/profile hangs because 'print' waited for input on stdin.

Thing is, because having unix-csh years ago, I had some bash-function 'print()' in ~/.profile, which used 'pr' piped to 'lp' to print some files.

This is the reason why sourcing /etc/profile on logged in bash prompt hangs, because 'pr' reads from stdin.

But then I realized that even if I do not have that bash-function, and 'print' is not bash-builtin, /dev/fs/C/WINDOWS/system32/print.exe is used here to do the noop.

Just can't believe this being expected behaviour...

/haubi/

[rodney]

> Just can't believe this being expected behaviour...

No, it's not something done intensionally against bash.
The login script was originally written just for sh/ksh.
The script can be "naturally" overloaded to be used by bash.
It seemed to be okay. This is the first time someone has noticed this problem
in 3-1/2 years.

I'll look at making a patch on /etc/profile for bash users.
Thanks for letting us know.

[haubi]

Looks like I fall into much more traps than others - I had the problem since I started working with Interix because of my 'print' function...

Thank you!

haubi