shell scripts in system commands

[Bill Vermillion]

On Wed, Nov 24 23:53 , Brian K. White gie sprachen "Vyizdur zomen 
emororz izaziz zander izorziz", and continued with: 

> Can anyone with a sco box and a recent version of fp
> corroborate something for me?

I'll not do that, but just want to make a comment below.

> The most technically correct way to write a shell script is
> to specify the shell in the first lint that should be used to
> interpret the rest of the script. This makes the script more
> robust by not relying on hoping that the users shell, at the
> time the script is run, just happens to be the right one.

> ie:
> -----start-----
> #!/bin/ksh
> 
> echo "This would not work in sh or bash!"

At one time the most technically correct way to start
shell scripts was like this:

:
#!/bin/ksh

It has been SO LONG since I read why but some of the older
other shells beside the Bourne Shell [aka /bin/sh] needed
the colon on the first line and then then
octothorpe(#)exclamation(!)/pathto/shell on the second line.

If anything is still expecting that old syntax that could 
be a problem.   Probably not at all relevant but just thought
I'd add the variant to 'technically correct'.

That notation still lives in 'magic' as this short hunk
will show.

========================================
# commands:  file(1) magic for various shells and interpreters
#
0	string		:			shell archive or script for antique kernel text
0	string/b	#!\ /bin/sh		Bourne shell script text executable
0	string/b	#!\ /bin/csh		C shell script text executable
# korn shell magic, sent by George Wu, gwu at clyde.att.com
0	string/b	#!\ /bin/ksh		Korn shell script text executable
0	string/b 	#!\ /bin/tcsh		Tenex C shell script text executable
0	string/b 	#!\ /usr/local/tcsh	Tenex C shell script text executable
0	string/b	#!\ /usr/local/bin/tcsh	Tenex C shell script text executable
========================================

Bill

-- 
Bill Vermillion - bv @ wjv . com