Re: poor error handling in "/bin/echo" and bash echo builtin

[Bob Proulx]

John P. Looney <address@hidden> [2002-09-20 10:53:36 +0100]:
>  Something that bit me today is that echo does not report back all error
> conditions. 
> 
>  On a full filesystem, echo silently fails (leading the user to think
> there is wierd disk problems, until the disk free is checked).
> 
>  This is certainly the case on sh-utils 2.0 (RedHat Linux 7.1 i386), and
> bash 2.04 (same OS).

Some more information would be useful here.  Are you saing that the
system writes in echo are not checked and passed as an error return
code?  And that both of the following will not produce an error?  Just
trying to clarify.

External command:

  /bin/echo foo > /full/filesystem/foo
  echo $?

Builtin shell command:

  echo foo > /full/filesystem/foo
  echo $?

Bob