Bourn Shell -n Flag Questions

[Martin McCormick]

	I read about the noexecute flag or -n flag which is supposed
to check the syntax of a Bourn Shell script to see what it would do if
run, but not actually do anything.  This sounds like a wonderful
thing, especially when one is going to run a dangerous script and you
only get one chance to get it right.

	I tried sh -n scriptname and it always silently succeeds even
if I type sh -x -n somescript.  I even deliberately created a script
with a syntax error in it and tried sh -x -n again.  It still did
nothing but exit.  Does this just not work or am I misunderstanding
the purpose of the flag?

	Thanks for your help.

Martin McCormick WB5AGZ  Stillwater, OK 
Systems Engineer
OSU Information Technology Department Network Operations Group