From: joy <joy@313b444b-1b9f-4f58-a734-7bb04f332e8d>
Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2003 22:17:07 +0000 (+0000)
Subject: a better explanation for the which(1) situation
X-Git-Url: http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/ucgi/~ianmdlvl/git?a=commitdiff_plain;h=bb52d6f47f4bf50354bb692fbdb39eebc5756af6;p=developers-reference.git

a better explanation for the which(1) situation


git-svn-id: svn://anonscm.debian.org/ddp/manuals/trunk/developers-reference@2092 313b444b-1b9f-4f58-a734-7bb04f332e8d
---

diff --git a/developers-reference.sgml b/developers-reference.sgml
index 612ca1c..f0c6956 100644
--- a/developers-reference.sgml
+++ b/developers-reference.sgml
@@ -6,7 +6,7 @@
   <!entity % commondata  SYSTEM "common.ent" > %commondata;
 
   <!-- CVS revision of this document -->
-  <!entity cvs-rev "$Revision: 1.164 $">
+  <!entity cvs-rev "$Revision: 1.165 $">
   <!-- if you are translating this document, please notate the CVS
        revision of the developers reference here -->
   <!--
@@ -3106,10 +3106,14 @@ You can use this function to search <tt>$PATH</tt> for a command name,
 passed as an argument.  It returns true (zero) if the command was
 found, and false if not.  This is really the most portable way, since
 <tt>command -v</tt>, <prgn>type</prgn>, and <prgn>which</prgn> are not
-POSIX.  While <prgn>which</prgn> is an acceptable alternative, since
+POSIX.
+	<p>
+While <prgn>which</prgn> is an acceptable alternative, since
 it is from the required <package>debianutils</package> package, it's
-not on the root partition, although that is probably not something
-that will cause a problem.
+not on the root partition. That is, it's in <file>/usr/bin</file> rather
+than <file>/bin</file>, so one can't use it in scripts which are run
+before the <file>/usr</file> partition is mounted. Most scripts won't have
+this problem, though.
 
 
     <sect id="bpp-debian-control">