Unadvertised sh(1) feature?

[guy at rlgvax.UUCP]

1) The "osh" in V7 UNIX probably stood for "old shell", as it was the old
V6 shell (no conditional constructs except a FORTRAN/BASIC-style "if", no
variables, no backquote construct, no here documents, etc.).

2) The "operator shell" may be a local construct, or even a shell file
(undocumented feature of the month; in V7 and "Berkeley V7" UNIX, and in
System III UNIX, and *possibly* in later UNICes, a login shell can be a
shell file!  The login shell is executed with "execlp", so if it's a shell
file a shell is fired off to run it.).  I probably wouldn't resucitate the
V6 shell just for operators - there's no benefit in it (any command you want
to run with the Bourne or C shells you can run with the V6 shell; it's just
harder or impossible to do fancy things in shell files with the V6 shell).
I would guess that the "operator shell" only permits operators to run
operator-type commands ("mount", "umount", "dump", "restor", "shutdown",
etc.).

		Guy Harris
		RLG Corporation
		{seismo,mcnc,we13,brl-bmd,allegra}!rlgvax!guy