Bruno Haible <bruno@xxxxxxxxx> writes:
> The GNU Coding Standards [1] don't mention it as a portable utility. Indeed,
> when you use bash version 1 (which does not have 'printf' built-in) on a
> platform that does not have a /usr/bin/printf program, you would be hosed.
> But which platforms are this? The Autoconf manual [2] does not mention a lack
> of 'printf' anywhere.
The Autoconf manual does imply that it is missing in some places:
New applications which are not aiming at portability should use
`printf' instead of `echo'. M4sh provides the `AS_ECHO' and
`AS_ECHO_N' macros, which choose between `echo -n' on
implementations where that works, `printf' if it is available, or
other creative tricks in order to work around the above problems.
--
Ben Pfaff
http://benpfaff.org
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