Re: building rc on QNX4

[Tim Goodwin <tjg@star.le.ac.uk>]

> A more important issue IMHO is whether Rc should provide a built-in
> read function, similar to the one offered by most Bourne shells;

There is no *need* to make `read' a builtin: see the EXAMPLES file in
the distribution for an alternative.  One of rc's design goals is to
avoid unnecessary builtins.  So, no, I don't think this is likely to
happen.

(I accept that there is some work to be done, first in terms of
documentation: the EXAMPLES file is not as visible as it should be.
Also, I have some vague ideas for the future about a package of small
utilities to work with rc (and other shells); one of these would be
something like `line'---unfortunately not available everywhere---and
make a building block for an efficient `read' function.)

>                                                                  another
> one is whether it will ever make it possible not to export everything to
> the environment by default.

I brought this up a few months ago, and the consensus seemed to be that
the current scheme works well enough in practice.  Have you encountered
a problem?

Tim.