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CodingGuidelines: do not use 'which' in shell scripts
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During the code review of a recent patch, it was noted that shell scripts
must not use 'which $cmd' to check the availability of the command $cmd.
The output of the command is not machine parseable and its exit code is
not reliable across platforms.

It is better to use 'type' to accomplish this task.

Signed-off-by: Tim Henigan <tim.henigan@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
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Tim Henigan authored and Junio C Hamano committed Feb 27, 2012
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Expand Up @@ -46,6 +46,11 @@ For shell scripts specifically (not exhaustive):
properly nests. It should have been the way Bourne spelled
it from day one, but unfortunately isn't.

- If you want to find out if a command is available on the user's
$PATH, you should use 'type <command>', instead of 'which <command>'.
The output of 'which' is not machine parseable and its exit code
is not reliable across platforms.

- We use POSIX compliant parameter substitutions and avoid bashisms;
namely:

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