The environ(7) man page http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man7/environ.7.html says: SHELL The pathname of the user's login shell. PAGER The user's preferred utility to display text files. EDITOR/VISUAL The user's preferred utility to edit text files. but doesn't say whether the pathnames must be absolute or they can be resolved using $PATH, or whether they can have options. Note that at least for SHELL, this is not specified by POSIX. I've raised the issue in the Austin Group mailing-list, and the only answer I got is that "what constitutes a valid value for a platform should be documented": https://www.mail-archive.com/austin-group-l@opengroup.org/msg01399.html Since at least one application (OpenSSH) assumes that $SHELL is an absolute pathname (when set), I suppose that the documentation should be: SHELL The absolute pathname of the user's login shell. For PAGER, POSIX says: "Any string acceptable as a command_string operand to the sh -c command shall be valid." For EDITOR, it does not need to be an absolute pathname since POSIX gives the example: EDITOR=vi fc and since it is specified as "the name of a utility", I assume that arguments (options) must not be provided. Page 3013 about "more", it is said: "If the last pathname component in EDITOR is either vi or ex, [...]", thus again, it is assumed to be a pathname. For VISUAL, POSIX says: "Determine a pathname of a utility to invoke when the visual command [...]", thus it is also a pathname. It is not clear whether the pathname must be absolute, but for consistency with EDITOR, I assume that it will be resolved using $PATH. Note: I had also reported this bug in the Debian BTS (with no comments yet): https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=866060
Hello Vincent, I applied your patch (3 years later...). I added a Signed-off-by field on your behalf, and will forward it to Michael now. Thanks for the report and the patch, Alex
[CC += Bastien] On 1/19/21 9:36 PM, Alejandro Colomar (man-pages) wrote: > Hello Vincent, > > I applied your patch (3 years later...). > I added a Signed-off-by field on your behalf, > and will forward it to Michael now. > > Thanks for the report and the patch, > > Alex > Oops sorry, the patch is from Bastien now that I see. I found it just in time! Regards, Alex