Funny thing happened to me ... Beware of "$_" and the shell

[Thad P Floryan]

Nice to be able to answer one's own questions, eh?  :-)

Re: my questions about the "stock" ksh accompanying the UNIXPC's Development
Set, let's just say the "stock" ksh sucks dead bunnies through a straw.

Also, I incorrectly reported the size of the "new" one as being the same as
the DevSet ksh; specifically: the "stock" ksh is 90088 bytes and the "06/03/86"
version is 90912 bytes.

Not using vi, I neglected to mention the ^V command (for ksh version) operates
only in Emacs mode.

And the "06/03/86" version is THE one documented in the new KORNSHELL book I
cited earlier (with the "11/16/88" version's newer features or differences from
the "06/03/86" version highlighted; the "stock" UNIXPC ksh lacks MANY of the
features of the "06/03/86" ksh).

Among the differences and bug fixes are (greatly abbreviated list):

	stock, "ksh/sh:msg.c 1.2"		"06/03/86" version
	------------------------------------	-----------------------

1)	ksh> let x=2.2				ksh> let x=2.2
	/bin/ksh: 2.2: bad number		ksh> echo $x
	ksh>					2
						ksh>

2)	M-c and M-l (for case change and	M-c and M-l work
	lower case in emacs mode) DON'T work

		(where "M-x" is Emacs' notation for "<ESCAPE>x")

3)	ksh> echo $SECONDS			ksh> echo $SECONDS
						32
	ksh> echo $SECONDS			ksh> echo $SECONDS
						34
	ksh>					ksh>

		(The monotonically increasing value of seconds since shell
		 start simply doesn't exist in the "stock" version.)

4)	ksh> let x=-3; echo $x			ksh> let x=-3; echo $x
	4294967293				-3
	ksh>					ksh>

5)	ksh> set -o				ksh> set -o
						... more options ...

6)	ksh> ls foo<ESC>*			ksh> ls foo<ESC>*
	rings bell and does squat		filename/pathname completion

etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.


WHY oh WHY oh WHY are these gems kept "secret" from us?  Does AT&T believe
that UNIXPC owners/users are lower than whale turds or something?  Though
it IS fun ferreting out such things, I don't have as much time anymore for such
frivolous activities and would simply prefer we got our "due."  I never did
get the "UNIXPC calendar" that was promised when I sent in the warranty cards,
but thanks to this newsgroup, however, I was able to retrieve the files from
the hidden /etc/fixes directory (under 3.51) and install them manually.

As a stockholder, I just may attend the next shareholders' meeting and express
my "satisfaction" with the "wonderful" support we get.   :-(

Thad Floryan [ thad at cup.portal.com (OR) ..!sun!portal!cup.portal.com!thad ]