Subject: Re: Shell script ignores $PATH?!
From: Brian Dessent <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 05 Oct 2004 04:24:53 -0700

[email-masked] wrote:

> So my guess is that when a script with no #!/path line is run, then the
> default is to run /usr/bin/sh to start it, and the PATH simply doesn't
> come into it.

If you want to specify what shell is used to run a script you either
need to specify it in the shebang of the script (#!/path/to/shell) or
you need to start that shell explicitly (/path/to/shell
/path/to/script).  If you try to execute a script with no shebang then
the behavoir is going to be system-dependent.  On cygwin that means
defaulting to /bin/sh, as you can see from spawn.cc:spawn_guts()

      if (buf[0] != '#' || buf[1] != '!')
        {
          pgm = (char *) "/bin/sh";
          arg1 = NULL;
        }

In other words, you were being too ambiguous.  Explicitly call the shell
that you want if it differs from the norm.  The "it'll use whatever is
in the path" is a DOS-ism.

Brian

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