On Wednesday, 21 November 2007 at 8:51:04 -0500, Jim Capp wrote: FreeBSD and NetBSD still have this link: $ ls -li /bin/[ /bin/test 683091 -r-xr-xr-x 2 root wheel 7460 Aug 19 2006 /bin/[ 683091 -r-xr-xr-x 2 root wheel 7460 Aug 19 2006 /bin/test I suppose OpenBSD does too, but I don't have a machine to check. Greg -- Finger grog(a)lemis.com for PGP public key. See complete headers for address and phone numbers.

What I seem to remember is that it was a trick used in BSD to achieve compatibility with SystemV shell scripts (the shell on System-V would understand [ .. ] but the one on BSD wouldn't and making [ a symlink to test would fix the problem). My copy of Portable C and UNIX system programming only mentions that the [ .. ] construct may be missing on some shell versions and this can usually be fixed by symlinking [ to test. A hardlink from /bin/[ to /bin/test was present on Ultrix since at least 3.1, which would also attest to the BSDism or workaround for non-System-V systems. Sorry, this is too far back in time for my feeble memory. j On Wed, 5 Dec 2007 11:20:38 +1100 "Christopher Vance" <cjsvance(a)gmail.com> wrote: -- These opinions are mine and only mine. Hey man, I saw them first! José R. Valverde De nada sirve la Inteligencia Artificial cuando falta la Natural