Is SVR2 /bin/sh backwards compatible to v7?

Doug Gwyn gwyn at smoke.BRL.MIL
Wed Jan 25 08:07:52 AEST 1989


In article <165 at apmpyr.nzapmb.co.nz> pgfdp at nzapmb.co.nz (Paul Fox ) writes:
>	Does anyone see a problem with simply _replacing_ the UCB /bin/sh
>	(i.e. the one called /.ucbbin/sh) with the AT&T shell (the one
>	called /.attbin/sh)?

The main problem you're likely to run into is that the System V sh
has "echo" built in, with different semantics.  In particular,
	echo 'main(){printf("Hello, world!\n");}' > foo.c
doesn't do what you might expect.  We tried the plug-replacement and
found that it broke a 4.2BSD kernel makefile.

You might consider getting the BRL-enhanced SVR2 Bourne shell, which
has the added advantage of supporting job control, EMACS-style command
history editing, etc.  It can be configured in a number of ways,
including 4.2BSD "echo" semantics, by simple edits in its Makefile.



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