Re: Manual descriptions for -a file and -e file

[Emanuele Torre]

On Mon, Mar 27, 2023 at 09:20:27AM +0200, Andreas Kusalananda Kähäri wrote:
> Oh, about -L and -h: The description in the POSIX standad for these
> two are identical, without pointing out that they are identical.  So
> there is a precedence there.
> 
> https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/test.html

Thankfully, FreeBSD avoids confusions caused by the existence of those
two identical primaries by claiming that -h is not guaranteed to be
supported and that -L should always be used instead:

    -h file  True if file exists and is a symbolic link.  This operator
             is retained for compatibility with previous versions of
             this program.  Do not rely on its existence; use -L
             instead.

    -L file  True if file exists and is a symbolic link.

https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?test

OpenBSD also avoids confusions by claiming that -L is not guaranteed to
be supported and that -h should always be used instead:   :D

    -h file  True if file exists and is a symbolic link.

    -L file  True if file exists and is a symbolic link.  This operator
             is for compatibility purposes.  Do not rely on its
             existence; use -h instead.

https://man.openbsd.org/test

 emanuele6