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From: m5d@bobkat.UUCP (Mike McNally )
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Korn Shell
Message-ID: <772@bobkat.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 18-Mar-87 09:17:03 EST
Article-I.D.: bobkat.772
Posted: Wed Mar 18 09:17:03 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 21-Mar-87 06:59:40 EST
References: <580@csun.UUCP> <5680@brl-smoke.ARPA> <2201@ptsfa.UUCP> <730@hoqax.UUCP>
Reply-To: m5d@bobkat.UUCP (Mike McNally (Man Insane))
Organization: Digital Lynx, Inc; Dallas, TX
Lines: 24
Keywords: Korn shell ksh aliases parameters

In article <730@hoqax.UUCP> twb@hoqax.UUCP (BEATTIE) writes:
> ...
>Why can't aliases and functions be exported like shell variables?
>Tom.

Because the overhead on an execve (or whatever under SV) would be
frightening.  Most of the time, the target of the execve is not the
shell.  I suppose the shell could figure out when it should pass
functions across the environment (does SV have something like the
`#!interpreter' thing that BSD has?); this could be hard though.
Doesn't the shell source some file each time it starts up?

(Note -- I ask lots of these questions because of my almost pure
BSD background.  With the (*gag*) c shell and with (modestly)
my shell, a file is sourced each time the shell is started; a
different file is also sourced if the shell is the login shell.
My shell has subroutines but does not attempt to pass them across
execve boundaries.)

-- 
Mike McNally, mercifully employed at Digital Lynx ---
    Where Plano Road the Mighty Flood of Forest Lane doth meet,
    And Garland fair, whose perfumed air flows soft about my feet...
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