[Xquartz-dev] 2.3.2_rc4

[Jordan K. Hubbard]

On Dec 18, 2008, at 2:02 PM, Harald Hanche-Olsen wrote:

> What I am saying is that building a command and blindly feeding it to
> $SHELL is a singularly bad idea. I don't know if that is what you were
> suggesting, but if it was, don't go there.

 From a standards perspective, there is only one shell:  /bin/sh.    
That shell must conform to IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 (AKA UNIX03) and is  
thus a portable target for writing scripts for (at least, on any  
UNIX03 compatible Unix such as Solaris, Mac OS X, AIX or HPUX).  Any  
assumptions above and beyond that are not guaranteed to do anything  
more than break as you move across platforms.

- Jordan

P.S.  Any comments on whether UNIX03, or standards of any kind, are  
desirable or even relevant should be directed at /dev/null since this  
is not THAT discussion, this is simply a clarification on the topic of  
shells. :)