Re: [PATCH] Fix hang if $OLDPWD points to inaccessible directory

[Chet Ramey]

On 9/30/17 4:20 AM, Mikulas Patocka wrote:

> Is there some reason why do we need to check if $OLDPWD is a real 
> directory? dash and ksh accept the $OLDPWD variable, but don't poke it 
> with the stat syscall. zsh clears $OLDPWD.

It makes no sense to inherit it if it doesn't name a directory (or
"pathname" in the Posix standard), other than the sort of lazy evaluation
that will prevent your particular problem.

This is the same reasoning that rejects inheriting PWD if it doesn't name
the current directory.

-- 
``The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.'' - Chaucer
                 ``Ars longa, vita brevis'' - Hippocrates
Chet Ramey, UTech, CWRU    chet@case.edu    http://cnswww.cns.cwru.edu/~chet/