awk inconsistency

Robie Basak robie.basak at ubuntu.com
Wed Mar 3 15:06:17 UTC 2021


[also CCing ubuntu-server@ as server people might also want this as a
PSA]

I just noticed something. mawk is Required, so provides the usual
implementation of awk on Ubuntu. However, byobu depends on gawk, and
byobu is seeded on server (and cloud images). gawk also provides the awk
update-alternative at a higher priority than mawk. So gawk is
effectively the default awk implementation on Ubuntu Server.

I suspect that this happened a long time ago, and is an accident. I
don't like the inconsistency as it could lead to surprising behaviour.

However I'm not sure if it's worth making consistent, as this might
break people who depend on some specific behaviour on release upgrade.

So I'm not suggesting we do anything about it now, but I thought I'd
leave this note in case anyone finds themselves puzzled by this in the
future.

Robie
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