Re: [PATCH] Supplant the "while case ... break ;; esac" idiom

> Eygene Ryabinkin <rea-git@codelabs.ru> writes:
>>> The comment "... holds only for a shell where [ is a builtin" doesn't
>>> make any sense to me
>>
>> The 'while case ...' construct does not invoke any external commands.
>> The 'while test ...' too, but only when 'test' is builtin.  When
>> 'test' is the external binary you get one additional fork/exec per
>> each cycle.
>
> In practice that's not an issue though -- every reasonable shell has
> test as a builtin these days, so the "works when test is not a builtin"
> criteria is really important only for robustness.