OT: broken/useless ansi - console driver??

[Bob Stockler]

Ken Brody wrote (on Mon, Oct 24, 2005 at 07:36:21PM -0400):

| Quoting Bob Stockler (Mon, 24 Oct 2005 17:33:32 -0400):
| [...]
| > | Now, if only system() would run /bin/sh rather than the incompatible
| > | /u95/bin/sh instead.  (Regardless of the SHELL setting.)
| >
| > Why?  What's incompatible about it?  It's the latest version of
| > the REAL KornShell (ksh93) and is (mostly) backwards commpatible
| > with the Bourne shell when doing what the Bourne shell would do.

Sorta Top Posting because I don't understand what follows . . .

As I understand the SYSTEM command in filePro, on UNIX-like systems
it invokes /bin/sh to execute what is passed to it.

On Linux systems /bin/sh might be anything.  How do you handle that?

>From filePro Menu Action Command Lines I've tested (on OSR5):

  ++
  +PERL+
  +AWK+
  +SHELL+

and they all work as expected (no matter what SHELL in the envionment).

I like filePro and I like SCO OSR6.

I'll do anything I can do to make them compatible.
 
Bob

| "echo -n" isn't supported, as it is in /bin/sh.  I'm sure there are
| other minor differences like this as well.  This is probably because
| /u95/bin/sh is really the Korn shell.  (Though it may behave differently
| when run as "sh" rather than "ksh".  I haven't tested that.)
| 
| In a shell script, something like
| 
|     if [ $foo = bar ]
| 
| when foo is null will continue execution of the script, failing just the
| above test, whereas /bin/sh will abort the entire script.  (True, one
| can argue that the above line is "broken" because of the lack of quotes,
| but it's a change in behavior nonetheless.
| 
| Create a script "/tmp/foo" as:
| 
|     if [ = bar ]
|     then
|         echo true
|     else
|         echo false
|     fi
|     echo The script has continued after the if.
| 
| Run it with "/bin/sh -c /tmp/foo" and "/u95/bin/sh -c /tmp/foo" and see
| the difference.
| 
| The biggest change, however, is a script which executes a filePro program
| (or any other program, I'm sure) on something other than the last line of
| the script will cause the shell to exit upon receiving SIGINT, despite the
| filePro program still running.
| 
| For example, if you have a menu script containing:
| 
|     ... some code ...
|     $PFPROG/fp/dclerk filename -blah -blah -blah
|     ... some more code ...
| 
| and you go press DEL/Ctrl-C at some point in dclerk, you will be returned
| to the menu while dclerk is still running.
| 
| A simple demonstration.  Compare:
| 
|     /bin/sh -c "/appl/fp/dclerk ; echo"
| and
|     /u95/bin/sh -c "/appl/fp/dclerk ; echo"
| 
| Go into update mode on a record and press DEL/Ctrl-C.  A command prompt
| will be displayed, along with the "DEL"/"Ctrl-C" prompt from dclerk if
| running /u95/bin/sh, but will work as expected from /bin/sh.
| 
| I have verified that you can eliminate filePro from the equation via:
| 
|     /u95/bin/sh -c "vi ; echo"
| 
| Press DEL/Ctrl-C upon entering vi and watch the fun begin.  Compare
| that to:
| 
|     /bin/sh -c "vi ; echo"
| 
| --
| KenBrody at BestWeb dot net        spamtrap: <g8ymh8uf001 at sneakemail.com>
| http://www.hvcomputer.com
| http://www.fileProPlus.com

-- 
Bob Stockler  +-+  bob at trebor.iglou.com  +-+  http://members.iglou.com/trebor
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