Re: rc,linux,signal,readline

[Tom Culliton <culliton@clark.net>]

On Tue, 12 Aug 1997 04:19:37 EDT, Russell Davies wrote:
>  Hi,
>  	I have been trying for a while now to get the following 
>  	working under linux..without success..
>  
>  	a _dynamically linked_ rc shell with;

I have sent patches to the list which take care of all the rest of
your requests, but for some reason the shared/dynamic version of GNU
readline doesn't work like the static version.  At least thats my
first guess as to the problem.  Without readline it works "properly"
and trips clean when linked dynamically.  With readline it doesn't.

The size of the statically linked image is with readline unde RedHat
Linux 4.2 is 308264 bytes, actually slighty bigger than dynamically
linked bash at 300668.  On the other hand I think it was Chris (cks)
(or maybe Paul) who once gave some good reasons why a shell should be
statically linked.

> 	* readline (vi-key) command line editing.

I haven't tested this but it's in there.

>  	*  sigints/sigquits working properly (atm they simply do nothing
>  	until the next keypress, I want a newline with ';' after a
>  	sigint (yes I tried setting fn signint { echo }) as you would
>  	expect from most shells)

The problem is that without my patches readline catches and ignores
these signals.  If you want to use readline and have reasonable signal
behaviour you NEED those patches.  The other option is to use a
different command line editting package, but I don't know of one that
works as well as GNU readline.

>  	I like some of the features of rc and would like swap shells
>  	completely but if I have to complile statically just for these
>  	simple features, then the difference in size isnt enough to
>  	motivate me to quit using bash.

If size is your primary concern stick to bash, it tracks the Posix
shell standard and will let you work in the generally more portable
sh/ksh/bash world.  If on the other hand you find ksh and it's ilk to
be full of ugly hacky kitchen sink Rube Goldbergisms with a syntax
that only a mother could love, and more obscure "features" than the
biggest Swiss Army knife ever made, switch to rc.  Tom Duff started
from scratch and produced a clean, predictable, elegant design that
includes most of the good ideas from traditional Unix shells and got
rid of most of the cruft.

>  	If anyone has compiled an rc shell with the properties mentioned
>  	above, I would love to hear from you..
>  
>  	thanks,
>  		r.