Xref: utzoo comp.unix.questions:14946 comp.bugs.sys5:1035 comp.unix.microport:3577
Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcvax!aeb
From: aeb@cwi.nl (Andries Brouwer)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions,comp.bugs.sys5,comp.unix.microport
Subject: Re: ksh and sh
Message-ID: <8272@boring.cwi.nl>
Date: 15 Jul 89 12:49:41 GMT
References: <372@trevan.UUCP>
Organization: CWI, Amsterdam
Lines: 29

In article <372@trevan.UUCP> trevor@trevan.UUCP (trevor) writes:
>
...
>	Is there anything wrong in changing the name of ksh to sh or
>is there any incompatability.

I have been bitten several times, especially when installing new
versions of system software, by the fact that ksh does not
search the PATH for each command, but remembers where the command
was. (I.e., some commands, sometimes all commands,
are tracked aliases. There is an option to make all commands
tracked aliases, but none to switch off this `feature'.)
In an environment where one may have test versions of the software
in one directory, and later move this to the final destination,
or where one may create private versions of software in one's
own bin directory, it is really very annoying to have ksh run
different commands than sh.
I have even had ksh expand the first argument to nohup, in a
situation where nohup was the name of a shell script of my own,
and the first argument was not at all a command name.
Thus: ksh is a beautiful shell, but incompatible with sh.
I think it was a mistake to make tracked aliases
the default - I much prefer correct actions above fast actions.




-- 
      Andries Brouwer -- CWI, Amsterdam -- uunet!mcvax!aeb -- aeb@cwi.nl