[patch] bug #7 -- which(1) is b0rked

[Rob Landley]

On Wednesday 31 August 2005 08:06, Paul Fox wrote:
>  > Hi,
>  >
>  > http://bugs.busybox.net/view.php?id=7
>  >
>  > sizes are inlined in the patch.
>  >
>  >
>  > PS: please see the bug-comment wrt '::' and let me know if i should deal
>  > with it or not.
>
> i've added a note to the bug, which bernhard has probably seen by
> now, but for the list:  the issue is that "which" doesn't treat
> empty directories in $PATH as the current directory, and
> therefore won't always find executables that the shell would
> find.  PATH has always been interpreted this way by /bin/sh, as
> well as by bash.  (though the man page doesn't say so -- that's a
> serious omission, in my opinion).

When an accidental colon can put the current directory into the path, and this 
fact isn't even documented anywhere, that's a security hole waiting to 
happen.  We should not support that.  We should _document_ that we don't 
support it, and we should document that it's an undocumented "feature" in 
other shells.

If you want to put . in the path, be explicit.  It's just 1 extra character.

Rob