A Real Bourne Shell for Linux?

the_code_poet asks: "I'm a lead developer for a software development company, and one of my responsibilities has been writing an installer for our product (of which Linux is one of the platforms). In keeping with UNIX tradition, the installer is written in shell (thats /bin/sh), but as many of you know there is no Bourne shell for Linux - only bash. This has caused inconsistencies (mostly bugs in bash) when writing a generic UNIX sh script that works fine on commerical *NIX's." For a semi-complete list of differences between bash and sh, you will want to check out section C1 of the Bourne Again Shell FAQ. To be honest, I have yet to run into much trouble with a script starting with #!/bin/sh with /bin/bash, and I've been using the latter for years. If any of you have had problems related to this, please tell us what the problem was and how you solved it. Also: would anyone out there be interested in writing a real Bourne Shell for Linux?

"On every distro I've ever seen /bin/sh is just a soft link to /bin/bash. If bash is invoked with sh as its name (argv[0]) then its supposed to act like Bourne - but that just doesnt happen (for example: export FOO=bar is *not* valid Bourne shell syntax, you must say FOO=bar; export FOO)

Do you think that the startup scripts for most distributions would break because, even though they say #!/bin/sh at the top, they REALLY mean #!/bin/bash?

Given that there is no real Bourne shell for Linux, and that bash has an exhorbitant file size. Quoting bash's man page, here: '...it's too big and too slow' for something that is to be used as the defacto-standard shell for scripting, do you think its a worthy venture to set out to write a small, tight, pure Bourne shell?

*asbestos disclaimer*: This has nothing to with Bash as an interactive user shell and has nothing to do with a holy war over who's favorite shell is better than whomever's."

While doing a small bit of research on this question, I noted there was another Bourn-compatible shell out there called "ash", yet it's billed as doing "some things better and some things worse than bash". Does anyone use it, and find it better than bash for their shell scripting needs?

Re:/bin/bash - It all sounds so brutal

[Anonymous Coward]

hash bang slash bin slash bash

Re:No other OS?

[Doktor Memory]

There is no such thing as Solaris 2.8, and 2.7 only exists in some places. I assume you meant 7 and 8

You're just going to have to imagine me dressed up as Moon Unit Zappa circa 1985 as I intone from on high here:

Whatever.

Sun's breaking of a perfectly functional numbering convention for the sake of their marketeers is, well, their own lookout. Every other reader knew exactly what I was talking about, and only you were dumb and/or desperate enough to think that you could score some sort of lame debating point by pointing it out.

bash was only introduce into Solaris as of Solaris 8

Hm, I'm pretty sure I recall it showing up in one of the MU packs for 7, but I could be wrong on that count -- I was mercifully spared the experience of 7 for the most part.

/bin is actually a symlink to /usr/bin, so technically it doesn't put it under /bin

From Moon Zappa straight to William Shatner: GET. A. LIFE.