test -w

Learn something new every day: I'm trying to test if a directory on a different filesystem is writable. Instead of really writing to it (e.g. by using touch(1)), I wanted to test with -w:

$ ls -ld /mnt/usb/foo
drwx------ 13 root root 4096 Jan  1 15:38 /mnt/usb/foo

$ [ -w /mnt/usb/foo ]; echo $?
1

OK, /mnt/usb/foo is not writable, because /mnt/usb was mounted read-only at this point. But look what dash(1) thinks of this:

$ [ -w /mnt/usb/foo ]; echo $?
0

Huh? But the manpage explains:

-w file  True if file exists and is writable. True indicates only that the write flag is on.
         The file is not writable on a read-only file system even if this test indicates true.

...whereas bash(1) only states:

-w file  True if file exists and is writable.

Zsh and ksh93 behave just as bash - that is returning 1 when the file is not writable, even though its permissions would allow for writes. Note that /usr/bin/test is shell-specific as well! -- Not anymore? Let's try again:

$ mount | grep /mnt
/dev/loop0 on /mnt type ext2 (rw,relatime,block_validity,barrier,user_xattr,acl)

$ bash -c "[ -w /mnt ]"; echo $?
0

$ dash -c "[ -w /mnt ]"; echo $?
0

$ bash -c "/usr/bin/test -w /mnt"; echo $?
0

$ dash -c "/usr/bin/test -w /mnt"; echo $?
0

And now for the read-only mount:

$ mount | grep /mnt
/dev/loop0 on /mnt type ext2 (ro,relatime,block_validity,barrier,user_xattr,acl)

$ bash -c "[ -w /mnt ]"; echo $?
1

$ dash -c "[ -w /mnt ]"; echo $?
1

$ bash -c "/usr/bin/test -w /mnt"; echo $?
1

$ dash -c "/usr/bin/test -w /mnt"; echo $?
1