On Wed, 7 Jun 2000, Julian Gilbey wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 05, 2000 at 01:32:16PM +0200, Santiago Vila wrote:
> > > I've just read through the virtual packages list, and there's barely a
> > > virtual package which either doesn't do this already, for example awk
> > > says:
> > > awk Anything providing suitable /usr/bin/{awk,nawk}
> > > (*)
> >
> > Actually, if we want to follow common standards, we should deprecate "nawk",
> > there are several reasons for that:
> >
> > * Every implementation of awk in Debian support functions.
> > * The Single Unix Specification says "awk" support functions.
> > * SUS says nothing about "/usr/bin/nawk" having to be available.
> >
> > The same way we say "(POSIX) shell scripts should use /bin/sh and not
> > /bin/bash" we should probably say "awk scripts should use /usr/bin/awk,
> > not /usr/bin/nawk".
>
> Are there a significant number of pieces of software which depend on
> nawk?
Do you mean "/usr/bin/nawk" or "an awk which support functions"?
There are still several scripts in Debian which depend on /usr/bin/nawk.
All of them should work with /usr/bin/awk.
> Is there any harm in requiring there to be a nawk -> awk symlink?
That would make /usr/bin/nawk essential (because awk itself is), which
(IMHO) would be the wrong thing to do.
The real question is: Is there any harm in requiring awk scripts to
use /usr/bin/awk as a common interface?
