[Bug 1762] Improve the documentation w.r.t. "the user's shell"

[bugzilla-daemon at bugzilla.mindrot.org]

https://bugzilla.mindrot.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1762

Vincent Lefevre <vincent-openssh at vinc17.net> changed:

           What    |Removed                     |Added
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                 CC|                            |vincent-openssh at vinc17.net

--- Comment #4 from Vincent Lefevre <vincent-openssh at vinc17.net> ---
(In reply to Damien Miller from comment #3)
> re comment #1: I don't think this needs documentation, since it's a)
> pretty standard behaviour for user programs to use $SHELL where
> available (e.g. in ssh).

It's not a standard behavior: many programs use system(), e.g. mailcap.
However, their documentation doesn't say "the user's shell" in such a
case. So perhaps "the user's shell" implies the use of $SHELL if set.
This is still a bit confusing. For instance, ksh93 sets $SHELL to
/bin/sh if it is not already set (!!!), and this is definitely not the
user's shell.

It's still not clear about the absolute pathname. Note that POSIX just
uses the term "pathname" for both $SHELL and $0, while in $0, the
pathname may be relative (in which case, resolved using $PATH). I've
just raised an issue in the Austin Group mailing-list, hoping that this
will be clarified in POSIX.

> BTW, the ENVIRONMENT section is for variables that are set when
> logging in, not variables that ssh uses internally so even if we
> did document it

Yes, but if needed, there could be 2 parts under this section.

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