Re: bin/50960: /bin/sh generates incorrect value for && and || inside $(( ))

[Robert Elz <kre%munnari.OZ.AU@localhost>]

    Date:        Sat, 12 Mar 2016 21:34:59 +0000
    From:        <Paul_Koning%Dell.com@localhost>
    Message-ID:  <7E5297F8-347F-4850-8AB2-4C087F6CEE8A%dell.com@localhost>

  | Actually, 0 for true and non-zero for false,

It actually isn't, not for expressions in $(( ))

You're thinking of the && and || command line operators, and exit
statuses from commands, where non-zero is false and 0 is true.

At that level, the kind of evaluation that $(( )) is doing
is correct, that is, if you were (for some obscure reason) to do

	(exit 3) || (exit 4)

The result would (correctly) be "4" (that's what $? would be set to),
which is "false" if the value is ever used that way.

Generating 0 or 1 (whichever is to be true and false) in that situation
would be wrong.

It is currently very unlikely that anyone is actually currently
using || or && in arithmetic expressions, as there is no way to use
the value in any sensible way.   That is, there is (currently) no
testing operator (see PR bin/50958)

If one were to attempt
	$(( x + ( y && z ) ))
then in C (which is the model for these expressions) you'd get (the value
of) x, or x+1

But in shell (currently) you get x or x + z (never x + y) which isn't
a very useful outcome, I don't think.

In any case, in these expressions it is definitely 0 for false and != 0 for
true (on input, when generated, the value is 1).

And that is what $(( 6 > 4 )) gives (1) (or $(( 6 < 4 )) --> 0 ) and all
the similar relational operators as well.

kre