From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
Received: from artemis.le.ac.uk ([143.210.16.126]) by hawkwind.utcs.utoronto.ca with SMTP id <44666>; Thu, 18 Oct 2001 00:56:12 -0500
Received: from happy.star.le.ac.uk ([143.210.36.58])
	by artemis.le.ac.uk with smtp (Exim 3.16 #1)
	id 15tqpz-0002gt-00
	for rc@hawkwind.utcs.toronto.edu; Wed, 17 Oct 2001 14:34:23 +0100
Received: (qmail 14515 invoked from network); 17 Oct 2001 13:34:45 -0000
Received: from morpheus.star.le.ac.uk (143.210.36.121)
  by happy.star.le.ac.uk with QMQP; 17 Oct 2001 13:34:45 -0000
Date:	Wed, 17 Oct 2001 09:34:45 -0500
Message-ID: <20011017133445.9850.qmail@happy.star.le.ac.uk>
From:	Tim Goodwin <tjg@star.le.ac.uk>
To:	buggs-rc@splashground.de
CC:	rc@hawkwind.utcs.toronto.edu
In-reply-to: <20011017152124.15258.qmail@mail.splashground.de>
	(buggs-rc@splashground.de)
Subject: Re: Beta release rc-1.6b3 available
References: <20011015125606.2248.qmail@happy.star.le.ac.uk> <20011017152124.15258.qmail@mail.splashground.de>

> Suse Linux 7.2 with a CVS gcc-3.1 from last week does fine.

Thanks for the report.  (Keep 'em coming, folks!)

> But there are some issues, not version dependant, that I don't understand.
> This will get out of control:
> 
> ; fn l {ls -l $*}
> ; fn l {l -a $*}
> ; l

Your function `l' always calls itself recursively, so it rapidly runs
out of stack.

Remember that, unlike other shells, rc is not a macro processor.  In
particular, the `l' in the function body of your second definition is
*not* expanded using the previous definition of `fn l'.  (You can
always use `whatis' to see the current definition of a function.)

A simple

    fn l { ls -la $* }

is probably what you want.

Also, check out the `builtin' builtin, which allows a function to call
a builtin or external command of the same name without recursing:

    fn ls { builtin ls -F $* }

> And what about job control, how do I handle that?

This shell does not have job control.

It has been said (by Duff? Pike? Rakitzis? I forget...) that job
control adds a deal of complexity to handle just the easy part of a
hard problem.  The suggested alternative in a windowing environment is
to open a new window.

If you're not in a windowing environment, you might like the `screen'
program, which does both the easy and hard parts of the problem.
There's also a "tabbed" version of gnome-terminal around, called
`multignometerm'.

Tim.