Message-ID: <3145AAAF.639E@tempe.vlsi.com>
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 1996 09:47:43 -0700
From: Charles Marslett <charles DOT marslett AT tempe DOT vlsi DOT com>
Organization: tempe.vlsi.com
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: DJ Delorie <dj AT delorie DOT com>
CC: djgpp-workers AT delorie DOT com
Subject: Re: Library docs-questions
References: <199603101343 DOT IAA29218 AT delorie DOT com>
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[Inner quote from eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il]
>>       4) `system' ignores some commands that it considers `null'
>> commands.  Some of them indeed are (like ``rem''), but others aren't.
>> For instance, ``cd something'' and ``set'' without an argument should not
>> be ignored, I think.  Right now the code ignores both of these commands
>> with or without arguments.  Any particular reason for that?
>
>Sounds like a "unix compatibility" to me.

I think this is because system is intended to spawn another shell
and any commands that only affect the state of the shell, like
cd and set will just update the state of the spawned shell, then
the shell exits, resulting in an effective ''nop''.  I would suspect
that this behavior would be required by any standard that addresses
it.

--Charles