bin/102184: the -n switch of the test command does not work

[Florian Meister]

The following reply was made to PR bin/102184; it has been noted by GNATS.

From: Florian Meister <florian.meister at medienhaus.at>
To: Maxim Konovalov <maxim at macomnet.ru>
Cc: bug-followup at freebsd.org
Subject: Re: bin/102184: the -n switch of the test command does not work
Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2006 15:07:32 +0200

 maybe a shell problem - what shell do you use ?
 
 when I do the following I can also reproduce the error:
 
 --snip--
 tpextu02# set testvar="lala"; [ -f $lala ]; echo $?
 1
 tpextu02# set testvar="" ; [ -f $lala ] ; echo $?
 1
 tpextu02# [ -f "lala" ] ; echo $?
 1
 tpextu02# [ -f "" ] ; echo $?
 1
 --snap--
 
 bye, florian
 
 Maxim Konovalov wrote:
 > Hi Florian,
 > 
 > [...]
 >>> Description:
 >> 	test -n does not work. I always get a return code of zero, no
 >> 	matter if the variable has zero or more characters. I
 >> 	crosschecked it with the -z switch. This switch works with the
 >> 	same test-script.
 > 
 > Works for me:
 > 
 > $ /bin/test -n "aa"; echo $?
 > 0
 > $ /bin/test -n ""; echo $?
 > 1
 > $ export n="aa"; /bin/test -n "$n"; echo $?
 > 0
 > $ export n=""; /bin/test -n "$n"; echo $?
 > 1
 > 
 >>> How-To-Repeat:
 >> sample shell script:
 >> --snip--
 >> jail_interface="lala"
 >> if [ -n ${jail_interface} ]; then
 >>                         echo "interface: -$jail_interface-"
 >>                 fi
 >> --snap--
 >>
 >> try to replace the variable jail_interface with nothing - same
 >> result. If you replace -n with -z you get the expected results.
 >