Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!lll-tis!ames!rutgers!clyde!cbosgd!mandrill!hal!ncoast!allbery
From: allbery@ncoast.UUCP (Brandon Allbery)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: Where to get a cheap shell with history
Message-ID: <6909@ncoast.UUCP>
Date: 27 Dec 87 18:17:25 GMT
References: <1257@boulder.Colorado.EDU> <9069@utzoo.UUCP> <288@splut.UUCP> <6874@ncoast.UUCP> <3427@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu>
Reply-To: allbery@ncoast.UUCP (Brandon Allbery)
Followup-To: comp.unix.wizards
Organization: Cleveland Public Access UN*X, Cleveland, Oh
Lines: 28

As quoted from <3427@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> by lvc@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Lawrence V. Cipriani):
+---------------
| In article <6874@ncoast.UUCP>, allbery@ncoast.UUCP (Brandon Allbery) writes:
| > Which answer begs for another question:  What are those of us who run an SVR2
| > (or SVR3) without the Korn shell available AND WITHOUT A SOURCE LICENSE
| > supposed to do for a history mechanism, then?
| 
| You need to get a copy of the "bourne" code from an archive site.
+---------------

I said, "without a source license".  The "bourne" code is patches to the
source for the 4.2BSD Bourne shell, which is even worse than the original
idea:  I have to buy not only a SVR3 source license, I need a 4.3BSD license
too!

The simplistic answer, BTW, is to use a front end; I've seen a shell script
front end (bcsh) and have contemplated one in C, but in order to have the
front end not choke on Bourne shell programming constructs (and believe me,
I use them.  Often.) I'd have to virtually rewrite the Bourne shell from
scratch into my front-end; while this effectively obviates the need for
/bin/sh as a back-end, it makes things far more complex -- and, while I
consider myself a fairly good programmer, I *know* I'm not up to writing a
Bourne shell.  (My last attempt showed me why csh parses the way it does.)

Oh well, I may as well admit defeat on this one.
-- 
	      Brandon S. Allbery, Moderator of comp.sources.misc
 {hoptoad,harvard!necntc,cbosgd,sun!mandrill!hal,uunet!hnsurg3}!ncoast!allbery
     [This space reserved for future quotes and similar brain twisters.]