read() returns positive numbers in BSD systems, which make: bash / valid.

[Eduardo A . Bustamante López]

In the BSDs, doing a read on a directory doesn't return a negative value.

Bash assumes that you can't do reads on directories here:

1501   /* Only do this with non-tty file descriptors we can seek on. */
1502   if (fd_is_tty == 0 && (lseek (fd, 0L, 1) != -1))
1503     {
1504       /* Check to see if the `file' in `bash file' is a binary file
1505          according to the same tests done by execute_simple_command (),
1506          and report an error and exit if it is. */
1507       sample_len = read (fd, sample, sizeof (sample));
1508       if (sample_len < 0)
1509         {
1510           e = errno;
1511           if ((fstat (fd, &sb) == 0) && S_ISDIR (sb.st_mode))
1512             internal_error (_("%s: is a directory"), filename);
1513           else
1514             {
1515               errno = e;
1516               file_error (filename);
1517             }
"shell.c" 1925 lines --78%--

It needs to check if the argument passed is a directory before this part.

Please see:

    Linux
    
    dualbus@yaqui ~ % cat > readtest.c
    #include <stdlib.h>
    #include <stdio.h>
    #include <unistd.h>
    #include <fcntl.h>
    int main() {
    ssize_t nbytes;
    int fd;
    char buffer[16];
    fd = open("/", O_RDONLY);
    nbytes = read(fd, buffer, 16);
    printf("%d %d\n", fd, nbytes);
    return 0;
    }
    dualbus@yaqui ~ % gcc -o readtest readtest.c
    dualbus@yaqui ~ % ./readtest 
    3 -1
    
    NetBSD
    
    [dualbus@faeroes.sdf.org]$ cat readtest.c   
    #include <stdlib.h>  
    #include <stdio.h>  
    #include <unistd.h>  
    #include <fcntl.h>  
    int main() {  
    ssize_t nbytes;  
    int fd;  
    char buffer[16];  
    fd = open("/", O_RDONLY);  
    nbytes = read(fd, buffer, 16);  
    printf("%d %d\n", fd, nbytes);  
    return 0;  
    }  
    [dualbus@faeroes.sdf.org]$ gcc -o readtest readtest.c
    [dualbus@faeroes.sdf.org]$ ./readtest  
    3 16  

execute_cmd.c doesn't seem to be affected by this, only shell.c. This breaks
one of the tests that specify that:

    dualbus@yaqui ~ % bash /
    /: /: is a directory

Should be returned in this case.

-- 
Eduardo Bustamante
https://dualbus.me/