Last updated Jul '99 for pdksh-5.2.14. (check ftp://ftp.cs.mun.ca:/pub/pdksh/ or http://www.cs.mun.ca/~michael/pdksh/ for new versions/patches) PD-ksh is a mostly complete AT&T ksh look-alike (see NOTES file for a list of things not supported). Work is mostly finished to make it fully compatible with both POSIX and AT&T ksh (when the two don't conflict). Since pdksh is free and compiles and runs on most common unix systems, it is very useful in creating a consistent user interface across multiple machines. For example, in the CS dept. of MUN, pdksh is installed on a variety of machines including Suns, HPs, DecStations, pcs running Linux, etc., and is the login shell of ~5200 users. PDksh is currently being maintained by Michael Rendell (michael@cs.mun.ca), who took over from Simon J. Gerraty (sjg@zen.void.oz.au) at the later's suggestion. A short list of things that have been added since the last public pdksh release (4.9) are auto-configuration, arrays, $(( .. )), [[ .. ]], variable attributes, co-processes, extended file globbing, many POSIXisms and many bug fixes. See the NEWS and ChangeLog files for other features added and bugs fixed. Note that pdksh is provided AS IS, with NO WARRANTY, either expressed or implied. Also note that although the bulk of the code in pdksh is in the public domain, some files are copyrighten (but freely distributable) and subject to certain conditions (eg, don't remove copyright, document any changes, etc.). See the LEGAL file for details. If you would like to be notified via email of new releases as they become available, send mail to pdksh-request@cs.mun.ca with subject "send release notifications" (or "don't send release notifications" to stop them). Files of interest: NEWS short list of noticeable changes in various versions. CONTRIBUTORS short history of pdksh, people who contributed, etc. NOTES lists of known bugs in pdksh, at&t ksh, and posix. PROJECTS list of things that need to be done in pdksh. BUG-REPORTS list of recently reported bugs that have been fixed and all reported bugs that haven't been fixed. LEGAL A file detailing legal issues concerning pdksh. etc/* system profile and kshrc files used by Simon J. Gerraty. misc/README* readme files from previous versions. misc/Changes* changelog files from previous versions. os2/* files and info needed to compile ksh on os/2. tests/* pdksh's regression testing system. Compiling/Installing: The quick way: ./configure.sh make make check # optional make install # will install /usr/local/bin/ksh # and /usr/local/man/man1/ksh.1 [add path-to-installed-pdksh to /etc/shells] * miscellaneous configuration notes: * On DecStations, MIPS and SONY machines with older C compilers that can't handle "int * volatile x", you should use gcc or turn off optimization. The problem is configure defines volatile to nothing since the compiler can't handle it properly, but the compiler does optimizations that the volatile is meant to prevent. So. Use gcc. * On MIPS RISC/os 5.0 systems, sysv environment, <signal.h> is messed up - it defines sigset_t, but not any of the rest of the posix signals (the sigset_t typedef should be in the ifdef KERNEL section) - also doesn't have waitpid() or wait3(). Things compile up ok in the svr4 environment, but it dumps core in __start (perhaps our system doesn't have the full svr4 environ?). Try compiling in the bsd43 environ instead (still not perfect - see BUG-REPORTS file), using gcc - cc has problems with macro expansions in the argument of a macro (in this case, the ARGS macro). * On TitanOS (Stardent/Titan), use `CC="cc -43" configure ...'. When configure finishes, edit config.h, undef HAVE_DIRENT_H and define HAVE_SYS_DIR_H (the dirent.h header file is broken). * On Linux (red hat distribution), check that /dev/tty has mode 0666 (not mode 0644). If it has the wrong permissions, ksh will print warnings about not being able to do job control. * on NeXT machines (3.2, probably other releases), the siglist.out file won't be generated correctly if you try to use the system's compiler (it has a broken cc -E and strange header files). There are two ways to make it work: 1) if you have gcc, use it (for everything). Alternatively, force configure to use it for CPP, i.e., use CPP="gcc -E" configure ... 2) Force configure to use some extra CPPFLAGS, using CPPFLAGS="XXX" configure ... where XXX is obtained from running "cc -v YYY.c" on some C file. Look at the options passed to cpp (there are lots of them...) and replace the XXX above with them. Make sure you do a "make distclean" (or "rm config.cache") if you re-run configure with a difference CPP or CPPFLAGS. Also note that if you are building multiple arch binaries, you will have to specify both CC and CPP. * run make: everything should compile and link without problems. * run make check: this fires up a perl script that checks for some known and some fixed bugs. The script prints pass/fail for tests it expected to pass/fail, and PASS/FAIL for tests it expected to fail/pass. If you don't have perl, or if your perl doesn't work (most common problem is the .ph header files are missing or broken), you can run ENV= path-to-pdksh-executable misc/Bugs path-to-pdksh-executable instead. * run make install: this installs ksh (in /usr/local/bin/ksh by default, or where ever you told configure to put things). * add path-to-installed-pdksh to /etc/shells if it's not already there. This is only needed if you intend to use pdksh as a login shell (things like ftp won't allow users to connect in if their shell isn't in this file). The following is a list of machines that pdksh is reported to work on: -/PC Linux 1.x,2.x -/PC NetBSD 0.9a -/PC BSDI 1.1 -/PC FreeBSD 2.x, 3.x -/PC OpenBSD -/PC Interactive/Sunsoft 3.0.1 and 4.1 (note that problems have been reported with isc3.2 - see the BUG-REPORTS file) -/PC OS/2 Commadore/Amiga NetBSD 1.0 Dec/alpha OSF/1 v2.x, v3.x Dec/alpha NetBSD 1.1B Dec/pmax Ultrix 4.2 Dec/vax Ultrix 2.2 (not tested recently :-)) Dec/vax 4.3BSD+NFS (MtXinu) (not tested recently :-)) HP/pa HP-UX 9.01 IBM/RS/6000 AIX 3.2.5 MIPS/m120 RISC/os 5.0 (bsd43 environ) NeXT NeXTStep 3.2 SGI/IRIX 6.2 Sun/sun4 SunOS 4.1.3, 4.1.4 Sun/sun4 Solaris 2.x Sun/sun386i SunOS 4.0.2 Sun/sun3 SunOS 4.0.3, 4.1.1_U1 Stardent/TitanOS 4.2 Newer versions of pdksh may be available from ftp://ftp.cs.mun.ca:/pub/pdksh/ you may want to check for one if you run into any problems, as the problem may already be fixed (you can get new release notifications automatically - see above). The file pdksh-unstable-XXX.tar.gz has the very latest version which may not compile (it is generated automatically when changes are detected in the main source repository) - it is for those who want to follow changes as they are made. BTW, THE MOST FREQUENTLY REPORTED BUG IS echo hi | read a; echo $a # Does not print hi I'm aware of this and there is no need to report it. Michael Rendell, michael@cs.mun.ca