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This will make the program instantly unportable, because not all Bourne shells are POSIX-compliant. Please don't do that. || exit 1 is portable.

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Where are we going to come across a Bourne shell that doesn't like `set -e`? I accept that this choice might have been dubious 20 years ago, but we don't need to support SunOS 4.1.4 or SCO anymore...

We're talking about standards that were published in 1992-1994 and that the overwhelming mass of the industry followed relatively quickly. To hold back 25 years later is nuts.

I see this crop up as "wisdom", for the sake of some quality, like that quality is an absolute. What the parent is literally advocating is that we don't ever fix the mistakes of the past.

If you are generating a script that has to run everywhere, yes have the backend emit the verbose or tricky or unergonomic construct. But most of time, breaking portability to have something that is easier to understand, or more regular, that uses modern facilities is almost always the correct solution.

So, I'm usually the curmudgeon that advocates for portability, slowness of change, etc. Only in the past couple years did I move from C99 to really employ C11/C18 features in most code. This, in particular, though, I think has been safe for a couple decades.

What's "everywhere", anyways? We'll have a hard time even finding a system this won't work on.

Especially in the context of FPGA tools that will only run on modern Linux, anyways...

> Especially in the context of FPGA tools that will only run on modern Linux, anyways...

Right, annatar doesn't actually care that his "advice" here is completely wrong and irrelevant. His only goal is to derail any useful discussion in order to point out how smart he is and how terrible any software that isn't included with solaris 8 is.

Lets be careful to no blame a specific person but recognize the general argument. There is a limitless supply of folks caught in the same loop.

It really looks like this guy is just a troll at this point.

I have sympathies for the arguments. It's kinda unfortunate that Linux has taken over everything and we don't have real portable code anymore and other Unixes find themselves on the margins. x86, even x86-64 isn't really "clean". Way too much of the software ecosystem is willing to be on the bleeding edge. I worry we're losing core bits of Unix philosophy / simplicity as things evolve. Etc.

If the arguments were completely untrue, they'd not find any purchase. But this guy is running around kicking the hornet's nest whenever possible.

I am kicking the hornets' nest because IT is in a really bad shape because of the GNU/Linux monoculture and I want for things not only to change, but to effect change. GNU/Linux got to where it is by users bitching about how great it was for two decades, so the theory goes it should work for anything else, especially where that something else is superior.

And also, I have no fear of hornets or their sting; I've been stung enough times. I have never cowered and I'm not about to start now.

To add insult to injury, I am forced to work deep in the bowels of Linux and various GNU tools like GCC because of the current market conditions, so I get to "live the dream" every day. I want things to change, and I'm doing something about it, the best way I know how, which is by raising awareness, just like all the Linux people did back in the '90's and early 2000's.

You're convincing people who would be otherwise sympathetic that your arguments have no merit, by spouting wrongness ("set -e" is a bashism!! Even though it appears in V7 unix and 3BSD!!) You can't even admit your mistake.

I've loved Solaris, NetBSD, and Irix. ZFS is pretty cool.

But it'd be pretty easy based on your posts to conclude that the only people who still advocate for that stuff are wrongheaded, pedantic curmudgeons.

I never wrote set -e is bashism. I implied that people who use set -e will also write bashisms. Goodness knows I've had to fix enough of such garbage over the years to work with Solaris' /bin/sh and I'm revolted, sick and tired of it.

In the meanwhile, notice how absolutely no one could explain what's wrong with || exit 1, other than it's "ugly" (which is a personal opinion, not a fact)?

"You can't even admit your mistake."

So let me get this straight: because I was wrong about set -e making one's program instantly unportable, my entire argument that SmartOS is a good, fast product is invalid? I guess the implication here is that because I was wrong about set -e making a shell program unportable, I am wrong about everything else, is that it?

I haven't been talking about SmartOS. This thread isn't about SmartOS-- it's actually about FPGA synthesis tools that won't run on SmartOS, and criticism of how someone got those tools to run. In this thread you are batting .000-- the whole thing you showed up to assert was wronk, and then the whole sideshow of a conversation you tried to start is bad.

set -e is a stylistic choice, though one I'd urge anyone writing scripts in Bourne and Bourne-like shells to prefer by default.

And I stand by my statement to not use set -e because || exit 1 is a safe bet to be portable. This set -e is just nonsense.

The sad thing is I generally support things like SmartOS. I have a SmartOS box at home. It's just that anytime SmartOS or anything like docker comes up on HN, annatar comes out of the woodwork to complain how shitty linux is without providing anything of value.

A while back I even tried to encourage him to explain HOW zones are better with real examples instead of just shitting all over a how-to mentioning docker. He instead attacked me and said it wasn't his job to teach anyone anything. Awesome job, the only thing anyone learned from that thread was that SmartOS users are assholes.

What's left of solaris is dying and he is helping in every way he can.

"He instead attacked me and said it wasn't his job to teach anyone anything."

Sad to read this after having taught so many information technology professionals over the three decades, some of them in the heart of Silicon Valley. What I probably told you is that I don't owe you anything, which is still true. You disrespected me and attacked me several times. Why should I teach you?

As for the "what's left of Solaris is dying" "argument", I would be careful to make such statements, as they reek of casual usage: SmartOS isn't Linux; one deploys it because one has understood his advanced capabilities and features Linux doesn't have, to do a job and do it reliably and easier than with Linux, not because it's a good old buddies club where we comb our Ken and Barbie dolls and drink-pretend to have tea at 4 o' clock. If you want an echo chamber, stick with Linux; if you need to do a job, read the SmartOS manual pages, then come back with concrete questions. I'm not about fanboyism and casual usage, "community" and all that "Stack Overflow" nonsense.

Now, with all of that out of the way: what do you need help with in SmartOS?

It is dying, though. No one wants to be beholden to Oracle.

Outside Oracle, the various efforts to use OpenSolaris derived stuff are constantly fragmented and overall shrinking in size. What little effort there is to improve things is often duplicative between the three+ branches of effort. Hardware support is more marginal than ever on OpenSolaris derived stuff.

Less and less important software compiles under and works well under it, and it's getting harder and harder to run.

"What little effort there is to improve things is often duplicative between the three+ branches of effort."

That's funny, because I'm on the mailing lists for illumos and SmartOS and I see that everything generally useful impemented in SmartOS ends up upstream in illumos. Do you have any evidence to support your claim?

It's true that less and less software compiles on Solaris 10. I have to spend time patching badly written software to get it to compile. I have however not noticed any performance impact, on the contrary, that same software runs faster on Solaris 10 (and by extension illumos and therefore SmartOS) than on GNU/Linux where it has been developed, which is a slap in the face of GNU/Linux crowd hacking on that trash fire.

SmartOS is a different story, completely different: they use pkgsrc and their library is 15,000+ packages. So the argument here is mis-information. Presumably, this is being done on purpose, "because Linux"?

Take a moment to view his comment history.

You may need 'showdead' on.

The discussion was just fine until someone suggested set -e claiming that || exit 1 is "harder to understand" and "ugly".

It was just fine until you imagined `set -e` as something unportable and a bashism, bro.

set -e is not a bashism, but people who reach for it are extremely likely to write bash-only code. That's just been my experience.

And I'm not your "bro".

Cute backtracking. :) It's fun to watch you squirm and try and come up with a narrative where the laughable things you've said are justified.

I've learnt a lot from you. The original Bourne shell didn't support set -e. set -e is a bashism. Depending on a posix shell is unreasonable. This has something to do with Linux.

Wait, none of these things are true.

> because on Solaris /bin/sh is the real McCoy - Steven Bourne's shell from 1972 - 1977.

vs. v7 Linux from 1977-1978 including set -e. You're hilarious, bro.

For all I know, you could have made all that shit up. I see no reason to believe you or trust what you wrote there. I know I got busted by set -e or else I wouldn't have brought it up. It's that simple and no amount of trolling me will change that. I don't have Alzheimer's just yet.

And I'm not your "bro". Are you in need of an older brother so badly?

It's readily verified. I even pasted the original code, bro. Or you can login to a unixv7 system here, in browser: https://unix50.org/ Takes 30 seconds..

  Disabling XQ
  boot
  Boot
  : hp(0,0)unix
  mem = 2020544
  # RESTRICTED RIGHTS: USE, DUPLICATION, OR DISCLOSURE
  IS SUBJECT TO RESTRICTIONS STATED IN YOUR CONTRACT WITH
  WESTERN ELECTRIC COMPANY, INC.
  WED DEC 31 19:15:05 EST 1969
                                                                                                                                                                                                                 
  login: root
  Password:
  You have mail.
  # set -e
  # true
  # false
                                                                                                                                                                                                                 
  login:

I'm not your "bro", as much as you'd like me to be.

How is || exit 1 harder to understand?

With the exception of GNU autotools, I know of no backends which would emit shell programs. People write programs in shells.

I used that as an example of when using the portable idiom makes the most sense and not something specific wrt bash.

But in this case I know of

https://github.com/BYVoid/Batsh

and

https://github.com/kanaka/mal/tree/master/bash

????

Autotools is written in M4.. M3/M4 were developed by K&R to help automate generating mostly shell programs. In 1974-1977.

For someone who purports to be so oldschool, you're sure missing a lot.

Please take a moment to pause and consider what you're writing. Someone here wrote "let the backend generate correct code". I responded that people usually write shell programs, not backends.

You wrote that you know of no backends--- but we have a long history of macro preprocessing/expansion of shell scripts.

M4 would excel at this adaptation...

Which isn't even necessary, because everything posix conformant has "set -e". And if "posix" isn't good enough, the Bourne Shell back to 1978 has it (probably earlier).

You are hilarious, bro. :D

M4 is a generic preprocessor, not a backend shell program compiler.

And I'm not your bro.

Imagine a troll that acts like someone living in 1992 who only ever posts about how linux is a toy and solaris is a "real unix". That's annatar.

Which part of the fact that Linux is a toy bothers you, and why does it bother you? Is Linux a religion for you?

Presumably, the part where you push your opinion as fact to other people and do so in such a way that people are willing to label you as an outright troll.

You mean the same thing as the Linux / Docker / bash echo chamber on this site? Hm. Seems the good folk don't like a dose of their own medicine.

Which operating systems currently ship Bourne shells that aren't POSIX compliant?

I know this was a thing 20-25 years ago, but is it still a problem now?

So I guess I'm just used to POSIX compatible shells, it would be good to know about Bourne shells that aren't POSIX compatible (genuine question). But the shebang at the top of the script is bash so what I said is still correct in the context of the article. Stuff like multiple "|| exit 1"s makes people think that shell scripting is ugly and antiquated.

I know that "#!/bin/sh" and "set -e" will work on all the BSDs, Solaris, Linux, macOS, what Unix is realistically left?

Hi Rory. I am well aware of the flags you described - and indeed, they'd clean things up here. I am in fact tempted to go back and update the post - and either replace the shebang, or add the "early abort" flags.

But TBH, keeping that script (that I wrote in 60 seconds) nice and clean was the least of my worries... Making the damn toolchain work had far, far higher priority :-)

And after that, booting the LEON cores of course.

Yeah of course. I didn't mean to take anything away from the awesome work you are doing, this was nitpicking really, the script as it is, will work as intended, was really just highlighting this for the sake of others who may not be aware. Keep up the good work!

It doesn't matter what people think, what matters is that the code is portable. Isn't it better that the program JustWork(SM) unmodified on all platforms without having to worry about whether the shell is POSIX-compliant?

Up until the latest Solaris 10 patches, /bin/sh and /sbin/sh did not implement set -e, because on Solaris /bin/sh is the real McCoy - Steven Bourne's shell from 1972 - 1977. There is a fully POSIX compliant /usr/xpg4/bin/sh, but only Solaris experts know that the /usr/xpg4 directory exists and what is in it; 99.99% of the people out there won't have it before /bin or /usr/bin in their PATH.

Portability should never be traded for convenience, because when one does that, one forces "the next guy" to waste his time fixing one's code. That's just wrong. I've had so much of my life wasted by GNU/Linux "bashisms" which were completely unnecessary. I resent that deeply. That's my life I could have spent in more productive and fulfilling ways, rather than fixing what should not have been broken to begin with.

If you want to write portable shell programs, write them in ksh and then you won't have to worry about POSIX or non-POSIX.

> Up until the latest Solaris 10 patches, /bin/sh and /sbin/sh did not implement set -e, because on Solaris /bin/sh is the real McCoy - Steven Bourne's shell from 1972 - 1977.

There's been a conformant POSIX shell on Solaris since 1995.

/bin/sh has been conformant to this since 2007 or so.

It is 2019. When should we be allowed to use it?

POSIX is the standard for Unix portability and has been for the last 2 decades. System V never was.

"set -e" is not a bashism. The errflag was there from nearly the beginning. By the early 1979 BSD 3 development tree, it could be triggered by 'set -e'. When the POSIX standards committee decided to iron out differences between the BSD and SystemV branches of the Unix Family tree, they decided it was worth keeping, and over the next few years everyone conformed.

> Portability should never be traded for convenience, because when one does that, one forces "the next guy" to waste his time fixing one's code. That's just wrong. I've had so much of my life wasted by GNU/Linux "bashisms" which were completely unnecessary. I resent that deeply. That's my life I could have spent in more productive and fulfilling ways, rather than fixing what should not have been broken to begin with.

There's also things that are good for everyone else's productivity-- by e.g. not catering to someone who is stuck 18-40 years in the past.

> because on Solaris /bin/sh is the real McCoy - Steven Bourne's shell from 1972 - 1977

Wow-- I hadn't realized just how wrong your argument was! Bourne's shell from the outset supported set -e!

From Bourne's "An Introduction to the Unix Shell", ~1977-1978 (converted to HTML at http://porkmail.org/era/unix/shell.html )

> The shell flag -e causes the shell to terminate if any error is detected.

and the document goes on to state that you can use 'set' to set shell flags.

It's in the V7 source, too:

  CHAR    flagchar[] = {
        'x',    'n',    'v',    't',    's',    'i',    'e',    'r',    'k',    'u',    0
  };
  INT     flagval[]  = {
          execpr, noexec, readpr, oneflg, stdflg, intflg, errflg, rshflg, 
  keyflg, setflg, 0
  };

Along with a proper call to options() in the set builtin.

If the basis of your whole argument is history, you're complaining about something that would have worked on V7 or 3BSD. :D Apparently they are "too new."

edit: Running V7 on a PDP-11 emulator has the anticipated results:

  boot
  Boot
  : hp(0,0)unix
  mem = 2020544
  # RESTRICTED RIGHTS: USE, DUPLICATION, OR DISCLOSURE
  IS SUBJECT TO RESTRICTIONS STATED IN YOUR CONTRACT WITH
  WESTERN ELECTRIC COMPANY, INC.
  WED DEC 31 19:15:00 EST 1969
                                                                                                                                                                                                               
  login: root
  Password:
  You have mail.
  #
  #
  # set -e
  # false
  login:

>Up until the latest Solaris 10 patches

You speak in absolutes.

Very dated absolutes as well.

You might want to think about that.

Solaris 10 release date: January 2005.

Turns out they're absolutely wrong absolutes, too, since Bourne's shell, as it shipped in V7, supported set -e.

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