Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!fxgrp!news
From: grady@fxgrp.fx.com (Steven Grady)
Newsgroups: gnu.bash.bug
Subject: some bash stuff
Message-ID: <1989Sep21.013300.16294@fxgrp.fx.com>
Date: 21 Sep 89 01:33:00 GMT
Reply-To: grady@fxgrp.fx.com (Steven Grady)
Distribution: na
Organization: FXDevelopment, Mountain View, CA
Lines: 61

Well, I just grabbed bash 1.03 (currently only on a sun4).
I'm new to it, and I'm guessing one is supposed to glean much of 
the information about bash from the source (I've already read
the README and FEATURES files).  On to the questions.

How far in the future will documentation be written?  Not that
I'm complaining, mind you, but people should realize that bash
will not be used by a significant number of people until it is
documented..

I am a vi/tcsh user (although I also use emacs when it seems appropriate).
The vi keymap stuff seems far from complete (eg none of the uppercase
alphabet does anything).  Are there plans to implement this stuff, or
will I have to do it myself if I want it? I'm not averse to the thought,
but I doubt I'd have the time.  (BTW, the reason I use vi instead
of emacs is that the input is much more like rogue. :-)  It would be
kind of nice to have real support for vi mode (like the ability to rebind
insertion-mode keys as well as movement-mode), but if that's not likely,
at least the existing mode should be expanded to be satisfactory to
current users of tcsh or ksh vi modes.

It looks as though the "\w" and "\W" functions in the prompt string
are both close, but not exactly what I want (ie what's in tcsh).  I'd
like it to both convert $HOME into "~", _and_ only show the last
component of my cwd.  Currently, "\w" does the former, and "\W" does
the latter.

I created the following to run jobs in the background:
    doo() {
	$* &>$1.out &
    }
    alias do=doo
Then I can say "do make foo" and have "make foo &>make.out &" get
executed.  Unfortunately, the "jobs" listing doesn't show the
above line. Instead, it shows "[1]+ Running $* >&$1.out &" which
is almost completely useless.  Am I doing something wrong?  Is bash
doing something wrong?  Or will I just have to live with this?

Will the modifiers support in the history mechanism (":h", ":r", etc.)
also be supported for variables?  In csh you can use "$cwd:t"..

Am I the only one who thinks the display of the argument in the input
line is really ugly?  Perhaps a variable controlling this might be in
order..

Is the latest version of bash (with Brian's latest hacks, as opposed
to the standard release) available by ftp anywhere?  Perhaps on
some caltech machine?

Well, that's enough (the result of about an hour's worth of fooling
around). I don't think I'm quite ready to convert to it as my shell,
although if it works perfectly on a PC/RT running AIX, I may switch.
If I do, have no fear, I'll have many more questions.

	Steven
	...!ucbvax!grady
	grady@postgres.berkeley.edu

"Max, that bathing suit you're wearing makes my flesh crawl!
And where did you get sunglasses to fit your bizarrely-spaced
eyeballs?"