Re: exit status of jobs

[Peter Stephenson <pws@xxxxxx>]

> 	In bash 1.13.5 (at least), the jobs command returns a
> meaningful exit status.  This feature has been used in various
> bash scripts to determine whether a job is running or not.

This does seem perfectly reasonable: at the moment you get the error
message `no such job' and return status 0 which is inconsistent.  I've
assumed typing `jobs' with no argument should not return an error if
there are no jobs (as in bash).

*** Src/builtin.c.jobs	Fri May 10 13:32:12 1996
--- Src/builtin.c	Tue May 14 13:22:26 1996
***************
*** 563,570 ****
  	/* The only type of argument allowed now is a job spec.  Check it. */
  	job = (*argv) ? getjob(*argv, name) : firstjob;
  	firstjob = -1;
! 	if (job == -1)
  	    break;
  	if (!(jobtab[job].stat & STAT_INUSE) ||
  	    (jobtab[job].stat & STAT_NOPRINT)) {
  	    zwarnnam(name, "no such job: %d", 0, job);
--- 563,572 ----
  	/* The only type of argument allowed now is a job spec.  Check it. */
  	job = (*argv) ? getjob(*argv, name) : firstjob;
  	firstjob = -1;
! 	if (job == -1) {
! 	    retval = 1;
  	    break;
+ 	}
  	if (!(jobtab[job].stat & STAT_INUSE) ||
  	    (jobtab[job].stat & STAT_NOPRINT)) {
  	    zwarnnam(name, "no such job: %d", 0, job);


-- 
Peter Stephenson <pws@xxxxxx>       Tel: +49 33762 77366
WWW:  http://www.ifh.de/~pws/       Fax: +49 33762 77330
Deutches Electronen-Synchrotron --- Institut fuer Hochenergiephysik Zeuthen
DESY-IfH, 15735 Zeuthen, Germany.