From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 4524 invoked from network); 5 Jan 1999 11:31:40 -0000 Received: from math.gatech.edu (list@130.207.146.50) by ns1.primenet.com.au with SMTP; 5 Jan 1999 11:31:40 -0000 Received: (from list@localhost) by math.gatech.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id GAA02141; Tue, 5 Jan 1999 06:21:53 -0500 (EST) Resent-Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1999 06:21:39 -0500 (EST) From: "Bart Schaefer" Message-Id: <990105032045.ZM8550@candle.brasslantern.com> Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1999 03:20:45 -0800 In-Reply-To: <199901050305.WAA01991@ocalhost> Comments: In reply to Timothy J Luoma "Re: %B%~%b bug in $PROMPT in 3.1.5 ?" (Jan 4, 10:05pm) References: <199812311709.MAA01264@ocalhost> <990103213058.ZM2702@candle.brasslantern.com> <199901050305.WAA01991@ocalhost> X-Mailer: Z-Mail (4.0b.820 20aug96) To: zsh-users@math.gatech.edu Subject: Re: %B%~%b bug in $PROMPT in 3.1.5 ? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Resent-Message-ID: <"i5Sos2.0.kW._MVas"@math> Resent-From: zsh-users@math.gatech.edu X-Mailing-List: archive/latest/2009 X-Loop: zsh-users@math.gatech.edu X-Loop: zsh-workers@math.gatech.edu Precedence: list Resent-Sender: zsh-workers-request@math.gatech.edu On Jan 4, 10:05pm, Timothy J Luoma wrote: } Subject: Re: %B%~%b bug in $PROMPT in 3.1.5 ? } } So where is the option to turn OFF ksh compatibility? } } When things break when upgrading which have worked fine before, why should } I upgrade? Some years ago it became a goal of several of the most active zsh contributors to make zsh capable of acting as a replacement for /bin/sh, and particularly for ksh. I griped about this repeatedly for some time, but they had the support of the archive maintainer so I eventually gave up and ignored zsh development for a long while. (Somewhat ironically, Paul Falstad was working for me during that period ....) I started to pay attention again sometime in the late 2.6's when most of the horrible bugs in 2.5.x had been fixed. In short, I ran 2.4.306 as my everyday shell until 3.0 was released. (Yes, 306; the version number changed faster back then.) I told you that story so I can tell you this one: Things are much better now than they were around the time of 2.5. Most of the sh/ksh stuff can be controlled by the "emulate" command. However, ksh compatibility remains one of the goals of many of the people who devote their efforts to zsh, and (except for "ksharrays") parameters are not one of the places where such behavior can depend on emulation mode. A parameter can't temporarily become non-special when a function uses "emulate ksh", and the more special parameters there are the more likely it is that a name collision will prevent zsh from interpreting some ksh script or other. So that's the rationale for the change that was made to PWD, OLDPWD, and possibly some other parameters (I forget) during 3.1 development. It's rarely intentional that such changes break things [*] but zsh is complex and sometimes bugs are introduced. That's why 3.0.5 is the "production" release; 3.1.5 is by definition unstable, though it gets fixes posted more rapidly when bugs are reported. In other words, you *shouldn't* upgrade unless there's some compelling reason to do so; some 3.1.x feature you can't live without. [*] Don't get me started about the revised "setopt" behavior or the lack of compctl defaults. They're two reasons I ignored 3.1.x for x < 4. -- Bart Schaefer Brass Lantern Enterprises http://www.well.com/user/barts http://www.brasslantern.com