[Bug 1494] doesn't look on path for $SHELL

[bugzilla-daemon at bugzilla.mindrot.org]

https://bugzilla.mindrot.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1494

--- Comment #7 from Vincent Lefevre <vincent-openssh at vinc17.net> ---
(In reply to Damien Miller from comment #2)
> My copy of Single Unix Specification states:
> 
> > SHELL
> >     This variable shall represent a pathname of the user's
> >     preferred command language interpreter. [...]
> 
> Its definition of "pathname":
> 
> > A character string that is used to identify a file. 
> > [...]
> > Note:
> >     Pathname Resolution is defined in detail in _Pathname Resolution_.
> 
> I'd say that a non-absolute pathname for $SHELL clearly does not
> "identify a file" unless one happens to be in the same directory as
> the shell itself and the "Pathname Resolution" section doesn't
> specify that pathnames be resolved using $PATH.

There would be the same issue with $EDITOR, while POSIX also says
"pathname" for EDITOR and gives an example with EDITOR=vi (i.e. not an
absolute pathname).

According to a mail in the Austin Group mailing-list, the valid values
for $SHELL should be documented by the platform. For Debian, I've
reported:

  https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=866060

(bug against the manpages package, which provides the environ(7) man
page).

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