1
2Last updated Jul '99 for pdksh-5.2.14.
3 (check ftp://ftp.cs.mun.ca:/pub/pdksh/ or
4 http://www.cs.mun.ca/~michael/pdksh/ for new versions/patches)
5
6PD-ksh is a mostly complete AT&T ksh look-alike (see NOTES file for a list
7of things not supported). Work is mostly finished to make it fully
8compatible with both POSIX and AT&T ksh (when the two don't conflict).
9
10Since pdksh is free and compiles and runs on most common unix systems, it
11is very useful in creating a consistent user interface across multiple
12machines. For example, in the CS dept. of MUN, pdksh is installed on a
13variety of machines including Suns, HPs, DecStations, pcs running Linux,
14etc., and is the login shell of ~5200 users.
15
16PDksh is currently being maintained by Michael Rendell (michael@cs.mun.ca),
17who took over from Simon J. Gerraty (sjg@zen.void.oz.au) at the later's
18suggestion. A short list of things that have been added since the last
19public pdksh release (4.9) are auto-configuration, arrays, $(( .. )),
20[[ .. ]], variable attributes, co-processes, extended file globbing,
21many POSIXisms and many bug fixes. See the NEWS and ChangeLog files for
22other features added and bugs fixed.
23
24Note that pdksh is provided AS IS, with NO WARRANTY, either expressed or
25implied. Also note that although the bulk of the code in pdksh is in the
26public domain, some files are copyrighten (but freely distributable) and
27subject to certain conditions (eg, don't remove copyright, document any
28changes, etc.). See the LEGAL file for details.
29
30If you would like to be notified via email of new releases as they become
31available, send mail to pdksh-request@cs.mun.ca with subject
32"send release notifications" (or "don't send release notifications" to stop
33them).
34
35
36Files of interest:
37 NEWS short list of noticeable changes in various versions.
38 CONTRIBUTORS short history of pdksh, people who contributed, etc.
39 NOTES lists of known bugs in pdksh, at&t ksh, and posix.
40 PROJECTS list of things that need to be done in pdksh.
41 BUG-REPORTS list of recently reported bugs that have been fixed
42 and all reported bugs that haven't been fixed.
43 LEGAL A file detailing legal issues concerning pdksh.
44 etc/* system profile and kshrc files used by Simon J. Gerraty.
45 misc/README* readme files from previous versions.
46 misc/Changes* changelog files from previous versions.
47 os2/* files and info needed to compile ksh on os/2.
48 tests/* pdksh's regression testing system.
49
50
51Compiling/Installing:
52
53 The quick way:
54 ./configure
55 make
56 make check # optional
57 make install # will install /usr/local/bin/ksh
58 # and /usr/local/man/man1/ksh.1
59 [add path-to-installed-pdksh to /etc/shells]
60
61 The more detailed description:
62 * run "configure --help | your-favorite-pager" and look at the
63 --enable-* and --disable-* options (they are at the end).
64 Select any you options you wish to enable/disable
65 (most people can skip this step).
66 * run configure: this is a GNU autoconf configure script that will generate
67 a Makefile and a config.h. Some of the useful options to configure are:
68 --prefix=PATH indicates the directory tree under which the binary
69 and man page are installed (ie, PATH/bin/ksh and
70 PATH/man/man1/ksh.1).
71 The default prefix is /usr/local.
72 --exec-prefix=PATH overrides --prefix for machine dependent files
73 (ie, the ksh binary)
74 --program-prefix=pd install binary and man page as pdksh and pdksh.1
75 --verbose show what is being defined as script runs
76 Note that you don't have to build in the source directory. To build
77 in a separate directory, do something like:
78 $ mkdir objs
79 $ cd objs
80 $ ../configure --verbose
81 ....
82 $ make
83 See the file INSTALL for a more complete description of configure and its
84 generic options (ksh specific options are documented in the --help output)
85 * miscellaneous configuration notes:
86 * If your make doesn't understand VPATH, you must compile in
87 the source directory.
88 * On DecStations, MIPS and SONY machines with older C compilers that
89 can't handle "int * volatile x", you should use gcc or turn off
90 optimization. The problem is configure defines volatile to nothing
91 since the compiler can't handle it properly, but the compiler does
92 optimizations that the volatile is meant to prevent. So. Use gcc.
93 * On MIPS RISC/os 5.0 systems, sysv environment, <signal.h> is
94 messed up - it defines sigset_t, but not any of the rest of
95 the posix signals (the sigset_t typedef should be in the
96 ifdef KERNEL section) - also doesn't have waitpid() or wait3().
97 Things compile up ok in the svr4 environment, but it dumps core
98 in __start (perhaps our system doesn't have the full svr4
99 environ?). Try compiling in the bsd43 environ instead (still not
100 perfect - see BUG-REPORTS file), using gcc - cc has problems with
101 macro expansions in the argument of a macro (in this case, the ARGS
102 macro).
103 * On TitanOS (Stardent/Titan), use `CC="cc -43" configure ...'.
104 When configure finishes, edit config.h, undef HAVE_DIRENT_H and
105 define HAVE_SYS_DIR_H (the dirent.h header file is broken).
106 * On Linux (red hat distribution), check that /dev/tty has mode 0666
107 (not mode 0644). If it has the wrong permissions, ksh will print
108 warnings about not being able to do job control.
109 * on NeXT machines (3.2, probably other releases), the siglist.out file
110 won't be generated correctly if you try to use the system's compiler
111 (it has a broken cc -E and strange header files). There are two
112 ways to make it work:
113 1) if you have gcc, use it (for everything). Alternatively,
114 force configure to use it for CPP, i.e., use
115 CPP="gcc -E" configure ...
116 2) Force configure to use some extra CPPFLAGS, using
117 CPPFLAGS="XXX" configure ...
118 where XXX is obtained from running "cc -v YYY.c" on some
119 C file. Look at the options passed to cpp (there are lots
120 of them...) and replace the XXX above with them.
121 Make sure you do a "make distclean" (or "rm config.cache") if
122 you re-run configure with a difference CPP or CPPFLAGS.
123 Also note that if you are building multiple arch binaries, you
124 will have to specify both CC and CPP.
125 * run make: everything should compile and link without problems.
126 * run make check: this fires up a perl script that checks for some known
127 and some fixed bugs. The script prints pass/fail for tests it expected
128 to pass/fail, and PASS/FAIL for tests it expected to fail/pass. If you
129 don't have perl, or if your perl doesn't work (most common problem is
130 the .ph header files are missing or broken), you can run
131 ENV= path-to-pdksh-executable misc/Bugs path-to-pdksh-executable
132 instead.
133 * run make install: this installs ksh (in /usr/local/bin/ksh by default,
134 or where ever you told configure to put things).
135 * add path-to-installed-pdksh to /etc/shells if it's not already there.
136 This is only needed if you intend to use pdksh as a login shell (things
137 like ftp won't allow users to connect in if their shell isn't in this
138 file).
139
140The following is a list of machines that pdksh is reported to work on:
141 -/PC Linux 1.x,2.x
142 -/PC NetBSD 0.9a
143 -/PC BSDI 1.1
144 -/PC FreeBSD 2.x, 3.x
145 -/PC OpenBSD
146 -/PC Interactive/Sunsoft 3.0.1 and 4.1 (note that problems have been
147 reported with isc3.2 - see the BUG-REPORTS file)
148 -/PC OS/2
149 Commadore/Amiga NetBSD 1.0
150 Dec/alpha OSF/1 v2.x, v3.x
151 Dec/alpha NetBSD 1.1B
152 Dec/pmax Ultrix 4.2
153 Dec/vax Ultrix 2.2 (not tested recently :-))
154 Dec/vax 4.3BSD+NFS (MtXinu) (not tested recently :-))
155 HP/pa HP-UX 9.01
156 IBM/RS/6000 AIX 3.2.5
157 MIPS/m120 RISC/os 5.0 (bsd43 environ)
158 NeXT NeXTStep 3.2
159 SGI/IRIX 6.2
160 Sun/sun4 SunOS 4.1.3, 4.1.4
161 Sun/sun4 Solaris 2.x
162 Sun/sun386i SunOS 4.0.2
163 Sun/sun3 SunOS 4.0.3, 4.1.1_U1
164 Stardent/TitanOS 4.2
165
166
167Newer versions of pdksh may be available from
168 ftp://ftp.cs.mun.ca:/pub/pdksh/
169you may want to check for one if you run into any problems, as the problem may
170already be fixed (you can get new release notifications automatically - see
171above). The file pdksh-unstable-XXX.tar.gz has the very latest version which
172may not compile (it is generated automatically when changes are detected
173in the main source repository) - it is for those who want to follow
174changes as they are made.
175
176You can send bug reports, fixes, and enhancements to pdksh@cs.mun.ca (please
177don't assume I will see bug reports that are posted to some newsgroup or
178mailing list - I probably won't).
179If you are reporting a bug (with or without a fix), please include
180 * the version of pdksh you are using (see version.c, or, if you are
181 running pdksh, try echo $KSH_VERSION),
182 * the machine, operating system and compiler you are using,
183 * and a description of how to repeat the bug (a small shell
184 script that demonstrates the bug is best).
185as well as the following, if relevant (if you aren't sure, include them)
186 * what options you are using (both configure options and set -o options)
187 * the output of configure, with the verbose flag
188 (eg, make distclean; ./configure --verbose)
189 * the contents of config.log (this is created by the configure script)
190 * if you are using gcc (the GNU C compiler), which version it is.
191
192BTW, THE MOST FREQUENTLY REPORTED BUG IS
193 echo hi | read a; echo $a # Does not print hi
194I'm aware of this and there is no need to report it.
195
196Michael Rendell, michael@cs.mun.ca
197