bash question

[tmetro-blu-5a1Jt6qxUNc at public.gmane.org (Tom Metro)]

Ben Eisenbraun wrote:
>  $ head -n 1 /etc/gdm/Xsession && grep '\.profile' /etc/gdm/Xsession 
> #!/bin/sh
> # First read /etc/profile and .profile
> test -f "$HOME/.profile" && . "$HOME/.profile"

That explains the inconsistency. Looks to me like a bug introduced by a 
short sighted hack. It's presumptuous to assume the user is running a 
bash family shell. I recommend that the original poster file a bug about 
this with Ubuntu.


Jerry Feldman wrote:
> Note that on Linux when /bin/sh is symlinked to bash or dash, the shell 
> looks at how it was invoked, and probably has a switch to enable or 
> disable some features.
> ...
> This is one of the very nice features of Unix? and Linux in that the
> first argument to any program contains the command it was executed under

You can access the name of the executable under Windows just the same 
(as ARGV[0]), but the technique never became popular there due to the 
slow adoption of links.

  -Tom

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Tom Metro
Venture Logic, Newton, MA, USA
"Enterprise solutions through open source."
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