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Date:	Fri, 10 Dec 1999 02:40:39 -0500
From:	Byron Rakitzis <byron@rakitzis.com>
Message-Id: <199912100740.XAA29337@peanut.rakitzis.com>
To:	fosterd@hartwick.edu, rc@hawkwind.utcs.toronto.edu
Subject: Re: rc error messages from scripts

> Ah. silly me. How about changing the other messages and leaving
> 'segmentation fault' as a special case (ie, no argv[0])? would you
> welcome such a patch?

Let's see:

	; ash
	$ )
	Syntax error: ")" unexpected
	$ ; csh
	[leica@peanut]$ )
	Too many )'s.
	[leica@peanut]$ exit
	; bash
	bash$ )
	bash: syntax error near unexpected token `)'
	bash$ exit
	; 

Okay, on my own linux machine it seems only bash puts argv[0] in for its
"private" error messages.

You can argue about whether this is right or wrong but I don't see a
compelling reason to make rc do the same thing as bash. As I mentioned
before, I think there is an argument to be made for rc's errors being
unadorned, as the user is in a sense engaging in a "private" conversation
with rc before any forks or execs have happened. Maybe this is stretching
a metaphor a little too far, but that's how I feel about these parser
error messages.

Byron.