Bourne shell "if" syntax

[jb]

Michael Sierchio <kudzu <at> tenebras.com> writes:

> ... 
> Right.  Many scripts seem to assume that sh is bash, and that's
> certainly not the case here.
> 
> if [ "x$BLAH" = "x" ]; then
> 
> is the most reliable and portable way of determining if it's a string
> of zero length.

Actually this trick is not needed any more (it has not been required for
long time because the problem was fixed).
http://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/hotspot-runtime-dev/2012-August/004275.html

jb