Is the shell : command portable?

bash, csh, null, shell, zsh

Solution

Yes. It's the standard null utility. Reference: http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/000095399/utilities/colon.html

Problem

Is it recommended to use shell's `:` null command on supposedly portable scripts? Does it cope with csh, zsh, tcsh and whatever shell it may exist around there?

Original source