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authorJim Meyering <jim@meyering.net>1999-07-31 17:45:35 +0000
committerJim Meyering <jim@meyering.net>1999-07-31 17:45:35 +0000
commit08aa2e4bded49d5a900aea19e5210b0a2e3b7dc9 (patch)
treef49e9e34fe91af02da64074e069fbe86e2a04f81 /doc
parent5d4eefe8d858f8d832d0038175dd1b461e7004c5 (diff)
downloadcoreutils-08aa2e4bded49d5a900aea19e5210b0a2e3b7dc9.tar.xz
fix up true/false docs to include a couple sentences from Christy's truefalse package
Diffstat (limited to 'doc')
-rw-r--r--doc/sh-utils.texi27
1 files changed, 19 insertions, 8 deletions
diff --git a/doc/sh-utils.texi b/doc/sh-utils.texi
index 6973441ae..489205078 100644
--- a/doc/sh-utils.texi
+++ b/doc/sh-utils.texi
@@ -366,15 +366,21 @@ pipeline.
@section @code{false}: Do nothing, unsuccessfully
@pindex false
-
-@cindex exit status of @code{true}
+@cindex do nothing, unsuccessfully
@cindex failure exit status
+@cindex exit status of @code{false}
+
@code{false} does nothing except return an exit status of 1, meaning
@dfn{failure}. It can be used as a place holder in shell scripts
where an unsuccessful command is needed.
-Any arguments are ignored, except for a lone @samp{--help} or
-@samp{--version} (@pxref{Common options}).
+@code{false} ignores @emph{all} command line arguments, even @samp{--help}
+and @samp{--version}, since to do otherwise would change expected
+behavior that some programmers may be relying on.
+
+This version of @code{false} is implemented as a C program, and is thus
+more secure and faster than a shell script implementation, and may safely
+be used as a dummy shell for the purpose of disabling accounts.
@node true invocation
@@ -384,15 +390,20 @@ Any arguments are ignored, except for a lone @samp{--help} or
@cindex do nothing, successfully
@cindex no-op
@cindex successful exit
-
@cindex exit status of @code{true}
+
@code{true} does nothing except return an exit status of 0, meaning
@dfn{success}. It can be used as a place holder in shell scripts
where a successful command is needed, although the shell built-in
-command @code{:} (colon) may be faster.
+command @code{:} (colon) does the same thing faster.
+
+@code{true} ignores @emph{all} command line arguments, even @samp{--help}
+and @samp{--version}, since to do otherwise would change expected
+behavior that some programmers may be relying on.
-Any arguments are ignored, except for a lone @samp{--help} or
-@samp{--version} (@pxref{Common options}).
+This version of @code{true} is implemented as a C program, and is thus
+more secure and faster than a shell script implementation, and may safely
+be used as a dummy shell for the purpose of disabling accounts.
@node test invocation