Re: Bug#108417: procmail -p -m resets too many environment variables

[http://dummy.us.eu.org/robert (Robert)]

 > From: Santiago Vila <http://www.unex.es/~sanvila>
 > Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2001 21:35:18 +0200 (CEST)
 >
 > On Sat, 11 Aug 2001, Robert wrote:
 > 
 > > Package: procmail
 > > Version: 3.21.20010719.really.3.15.2-1
 > >
 > > procmail -p -m resets too many environment variables including PATH.
 > 
 > This behaviour is documented in procmailrc(5) in this way:
 > 
 >        Other cleared or preset environment variables are IFS,
 >        ENV, PWD and PATH=3D$HOME/bin:/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/bin/X11.
 > 
 > and also in procmail(1) in this way:
 > 
 >             If both -p and -m
 >             are specified, the list of preset  environment  vari=AD
 >             ables  shrinks to just: LOGNAME, HOME, SHELL, ORGMAIL
 >             and MAILDIR.
 > 
 > I think resetting the PATH by default has its benefits, for example,
 > you can be sure that a carefully written recipe that you tested on the
 > command line will work in the same way when it runs non-interactively.

Are you telling me that this is not a bug?  If so, I vehemently disagree
with you.  The man page does _not_ say that:

               If both -p and -m
               are specified, the list of preset  environment  vari-
               ables  shrinks to just: LOGNAME, HOME, SHELL, ORGMAIL,
               MAILDIR and PATH.

As you correctly quoted, it says:

               If both -p and -m
               are specified, the list of preset  environment  vari-
               ables  shrinks to just: LOGNAME, HOME, SHELL, ORGMAIL
               and MAILDIR.

Therefore, PATH should not get reset.

Try running my script with the 3.13.1-4 version of procmail and you'll see
that the behavior was definitely different and adheres to the man page.
(I discovered this problem only because all my existing old scripts
suddenly stopped working after upgrading to the
3.21.20010719.really.3.15.2-1 version of procmail.)