Debian Bug report logs - #866060
environ(7): please document the valid values of pathnames for SHELL, PAGER and EDITOR/VISUAL

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Message #5 received at submit@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Vincent Lefevre <vincent@vinc17.net>

To: Debian Bug Tracking System <submit@bugs.debian.org>

Subject: environ(7): please document the valid values of pathnames for SHELL, PAGER and EDITOR/VISUAL

Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2017 04:01:44 +0200

Package: manpages
Version: 4.11-1
Severity: wishlist

The environ(7) man page says:

       SHELL  The pathname of the user's login shell.

       PAGER  The user's preferred utility to display text files.

       EDITOR/VISUAL
              The user's preferred utility to edit text files.

but doesn't say whether the pathnames must be absolute or they can
be resolved using $PATH, or whether they can have options.

Note that at least for SHELL, this is not specified by POSIX. I've
raised the issue in the Austin Group mailing-list, and the answer I
got until now is that "what constitutes a valid value for a platform
should be documented".

Since OpenSSH assumes that $SHELL is an absolute pathname (when set),
I suppose that the documentation should be:

       SHELL  The absolute pathname of the user's login shell.

For PAGER, POSIX says: "Any string acceptable as a command_string
operand to the sh -c command shall be valid."

For EDITOR, it does not need to be an absolute pathname since POSIX
gives the example:

  EDITOR=vi fc

and since it is specified as "the name of a utility", I assume that
arguments (options) must not be provided. Page 3013 about "more", it
is said: "If the last pathname component in EDITOR is either vi or ex,
[...]", thus again, it is assumed to be a pathname.

For VISUAL, POSIX says: "Determine a pathname of a utility to invoke
when the visual command [...]", thus it is also a pathname. It is not
clear whether the pathname must be absolute, but for consistency with
EDITOR, I assume that it will be resolved using $PATH.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: buster/sid
  APT prefers unstable-debug
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable-debug'), (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'testing'), (500, 'stable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 4.9.0-3-amd64 (SMP w/8 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=POSIX, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE=POSIX (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)

manpages depends on no packages.

manpages recommends no packages.

Versions of packages manpages suggests:
ii  man-db [man-browser]  2.7.6.1-2

-- no debconf information

Message #14 received at 866060@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Bastien Roucariès <roucaries.bastien@gmail.com>

To: Debian Bug Tracking System <866060@bugs.debian.org>

Subject: Re: environ(7): please document the valid values of pathnames for SHELL, PAGER and EDITOR/VISUAL

Date: Wed, 13 Jan 2021 10:10:41 +0000

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

Package: manpages
Version: 5.10-1
Followup-For: Bug #866060

Dear Maintainer,

Please found the included patch

Please apply

[0001-Document-the-valid-values-of-pathnames-for-SHELL-PAG.patch (text/x-patch, attachment)]

[signature.asc (application/pgp-signature, inline)]

Message #19 received at 866060@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: "Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)" <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>

To: Bastien Roucariès <roucaries.bastien@gmail.com>, 866060@bugs.debian.org, control@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#866060: environ(7): please document the valid values of pathnames for SHELL, PAGER and EDITOR/VISUAL

Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 10:04:04 +0100

tags 866060 fixed-upstream
thanks

This patch has been applied upstream.

Cheers,

Michael


On Wed, 13 Jan 2021 at 11:15, Bastien Roucariès
<roucaries.bastien@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Package: manpages
> Version: 5.10-1
> Followup-For: Bug #866060
>
> Dear Maintainer,
>
> Please found the included patch
>
> Please apply



--
Michael Kerrisk
Linux man-pages maintainer; http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/
Linux/UNIX System Programming Training: http://man7.org/training/

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