[patch] bug #7 -- which(1) is b0rked

[Rob Landley]

On Thursday 01 September 2005 22:43, Paul Fox wrote:
>  > > are you suggesting that we change all of the busybox shell code
>  > > to not handle this case?  like it or not, this behavior with
>  > > respect to PATH has existed forever.  it's part of execvp(), for
>  > > instance.
>  >
>  > I was under the impression we didn't handle it now...
>
> no -- only the "which" command is broken, which is what the bug
> is about.  (see Subject :-)  the shells are fine.
>
>  > > like tabs in makefiles, some syntax decisions were made far too
>  > > long ago to be changed now.
>  >
>  > Actually,  I believe modern "make" commands all accept spaces.  Any
>  > indentation works.  (And people complain about python... :)
>
> really?  how modern?  i get:
>
> Makefile:24: *** missing separator (did you mean TAB instead of 8 spaces?).
>  Stop.

Huh.  I guess I was spoiled by the make commands under dos and os/2.  Okay, 
make remains even more fundamentally broken than I thought...

> i grant you, at least it tells me what i did wrong these days.

My favorite award in this case goes to perl where if you forget the $ on the 
iterator in a for statement it tells you.  It knows exactly what's wrong, 
this piece of syntax is totally superfulous, but it sits down and throws a 
fit until you give it the unnecessary dollar sign.

Rob