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RonK
Asked: 2010-08-26 10:55:02 +0800 CST

uname standard installation path

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Just wanted to know - is there a standard path where uname is installed? e.g. /usr/bin/uname or /bin/uname

I'm asking with regards to HP-UX, AIX, SunOS and RedHat Linux

Is there a common path in which all of the above contain uname? If not, how can I know on which OS my script is executing?

linux unix

3 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    uname should be in a location that's in your $PATH which almost always includes /bin and /usr/bin. You should be able to rely on executing uname without specifying a full path.

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  2. If you are making a general purpose script, you can include /usr/bin and /bin in the pathname if you are unsure. Then it would not matter.

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  3. You can never rely on binaries being in a particular location across all operating systems. Generally, for portability's sake, you will want to rely on the path being set properly. But safe programs tends to lock down the path (and Perl's taint mode modifies the path too). Thus perhaps offer the user of the script the ability to configure the binaries to be used.

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