Re: '[ --version' should give output, instead a bash error missing re: missing ']'

[Daniel Simeone]

You are correct:

/usr/bin/\[ --help

gives the desired output.

 When I ran 'which ['  it stated that the /usr/bin/[ was what was running, and so I presumed it was in bash.

Also, the error message says 'bash'

So, all in all, a bit counfusing.

Cheers,

Daniel

On 22 September 2015 at 10:39, Eric Blake <eblake@redhat.com> wrote:

On 09/22/2015 08:22 AM, Daniel Simeone wrote:
>
> Description:
>         According to the joint man page for '[' and 'test', '[ --version'
> and '[ --help' should give appropriate output, while 'test' should not.

You're probably reading the coreutils man page, rather than the bash man
page.

Bash has not (yet) implemented support for ANY --options to its
builtins, although there has been talk on the list of doing so for
future versions (especially since ksh has already done it).  If you are
executing the shell builtins instead of the coreutils versions, then the
behavior you see is expected and not a bug.

To see the behavior mentioned in the coreutils man page, be sure you run
the coreutils version of [, as in:

env [ --help
or
/bin/[ --help

--
Eric Blake   eblake redhat com    +1-919-301-3266
Libvirt virtualization library http://libvirt.org

--

--Daniel Simeone
PhD candidate,
Candidat au doctorat,
Université McGill University