Talk:List of POSIX commands

Updating to POSIX issue 8?

The table of contents for the section of the new POSIX release on "Shell and Utilities" has just went live:

https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9799919799/utilities/toc.html

The official POSIX version changed from 2017 (Which has identical commands to 2008) to 2024, which has removed and added commands from the 2008 list

Should this page be updated to match the most recent, and therefore most official version of POSIX? Vector2010Design (talk) 23:33, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Leverage annotated link

Many of the commands have an article and many of them has a good short description. We should leverage that instead of duplicating that info in a description column. Commands that don't have an article or a good short desc could use the current content. Like this:

Using annotated link for a command that has a page (description comes from linked page):

alias – Shell command that defines a word that acts like a command

SCCS

Optional (XSI)

PWB UNIX

Using a custom description for a command that has no page:

admin – Create and administer SCCS files

SCCS

Optional (XSI)

PWB UNIX

Look at the markup/source to see how I leveraged the Annotated link macro. Stevebroshar (talk) 13:19, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

Editor's misunderstanding of "determine"

Regarding the edit to "file", consult a dictionary. Read the POSIX description. TEDickey (talk) 20:24, 4 August 2025 (UTC)

Kinda vague. If you are saying that, as described in a dictionary, 'determine' is hopelessly ambiguous and that 'report' is a better choice, then I agree. But, you probably mean that 'determine' does have one meaning that's correct for this context so it should be used ... especially since that's what the POSIX doc says. ... Per a dictionary: 'determine' can mean to clearly identify something. It can also mean to set the meaning of something. The first meaning applies, but the second does not! Without more context, it is not clear which meaning would apply. For the text to be clear, we must avoid ambiguous terms. ... That the POSIX doc uses 'determine' is neither here nor there. Did you know that alot of software documentation is low quality; misleading if not wrong? Stevebroshar (talk) 12:05, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

Category

What is the purpose of the category column in the table? What defines the categories and which thing is in each category? If defined by the standard then should say that. If it's defined only here in this article then it's WP creating reality and should be removed. Stevebroshar (talk) 09:58, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

Status

In the table, what is status (column)? Seems to either be mandatory or optional + an option code, but what does option code mean? There are a bunch of codes (CD, FR, SSI,...) that mean nothing to the reader. And status doesn't seem like a good title for values mandatory or optional. How about optionality or mandatory/optional? Stevebroshar (talk) 09:59, 6 December 2025 (UTC)