On 11Sep2013 17:24, Rick Stevens <ri...@alldigital.com> wrote:
| On 09/11/2013 05:01 PM, Joe Zeff issued this missive:
| >We all know, I hope, that cd is a built-in function of whatever shell
| >you're using.
| >
| >[joe@khorlia ~]$ cat /usr/bin/cd
| >#!/bin/sh
| >builtin cd "$@"
| >[joe@khorlia ~]$
| >
| >Does anybody know why this file exists?
| 
| I believe it's a backwards-compatibility thing. IIRC, System7's Bourne
| shell didn't have a built-in "cd" command (or several others). Some
| scripts probably still look for that file (and the others).

Gah. No. "cd" has always been a builtin; it does not work otherwise.
Think it through.

| It's been superfluous for a long time, but time has proven that when you
| take away something like that, eventually something breaks or someone
| gripes about it.

It's a POSIX requirement IIRC; all commands shall have an executable,
even ones that don't make much sense on their own instead of as a
builtin.
-- 
Cameron Simpson <c...@zip.com.au>

Nonsense. Space is blue, and birds fly through it.      - Heisenberg
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