File: autoconf.info,  Node: Invoking the Shell,  Next: Here-Documents,  Prev: Shellology,  Up: Portable Shell

11.2 Invoking the Shell
=======================

The Korn shell (up to at least version M-12/28/93d) has a bug when
invoked on a file whose name does not contain a slash.  It first
searches for the file's name in ‘PATH’, and if found it executes that
rather than the original file.  For example, assuming there is a binary
executable ‘/usr/bin/script’ in your ‘PATH’, the last command in the
following example fails because the Korn shell finds ‘/usr/bin/script’
and refuses to execute it as a shell script:

     $ touch xxyzzyz script
     $ ksh xxyzzyz
     $ ksh ./script
     $ ksh script
     ksh: script: cannot execute

   Bash 2.03 has a bug when invoked with the ‘-c’ option: if the
option-argument ends in backslash-newline, Bash incorrectly reports a
syntax error.  The problem does not occur if a character follows the
backslash:

     $ $ bash -c 'echo foo \
     > '
     bash: -c: line 2: syntax error: unexpected end of file
     $ bash -c 'echo foo \
     >  '
     foo

*Note Backslash-Newline-Empty::, for how this can cause problems in
makefiles.