sh vs. sh5 in ultrix
rouben at math13.math.umbc.edu
rouben at math13.math.umbc.edu
Mon Sep 3 13:11:15 AEST 1990
In a previous article Michael Meissner writes:
>> How common are sh's that don't understand shell functions?
>
> Anything that is BSD based without adding from System V. For example,
> the Ultrix DECstation that I'm posting from has the musty BSD shell as
> /bin/sh and the System V.2 shell with shell functions as /bin/sh5.
> Another problem with the BSD shell Ultrix uses, is that test (aka '[')
> is a separate command that you have to fork/exec to get to -- I
> suspect echo is too.....
In spite of its shortcommings, ultrix's BSD sh beats sh5 in terms of
efficiency. On a DECstation5000, we have:
ls -l /bin/sh /usr/bin/sh5
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root system 45056 Apr 1 12:27 /bin/sh
-rwxr-xr-x 2 root system 163840 Apr 1 09:56 /usr/bin/sh5
So the executable for sh5 is more than three times larger than that
of sh. For quick execution of simple tasks there is a sense of
overkill in using sh5. I guess that's the reason that the folks at
DEC have not replaced sh with sh5.
--
Rouben Rostamian Telephone: (301) 455-2458
Department of Mathematics and Statistics e-mail:
University of Maryland Baltimore County rostamian at umbc.bitnet
Baltimore, MD 21228, U.S.A. rostamian at umbc3.umbc.edu
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