Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!pdn!boake2!jc3b21!rac
From: rac@jc3b21.UUCP (Roger A. Cornelius)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: MKS BUGS
Message-ID: <507@jc3b21.UUCP>
Date: 26 Nov 88 00:50:13 GMT
References: <1361@anuck.UUCP>
Organization: St. Petersburg Jr. College, FL
Lines: 98

From article <1361@anuck.UUCP>, by jjones@anuck.UUCP (jeff jones):

	Much stuff deleted
- I am now posting what I think are several BUGS in MKS.
- I am posting them so that fellow MKS users might save
- themselves some headaches or show me the light if I have
- errored in my usage and methods.  Don't bother sending me
- alternate ways of accomplishing the same thing as I already
- have work-arounds for these bugs, I'm just interested in
- knowing if fellow MKS users concur with these suspect bugs.

	Info about system configuration deleted
- 1. The length of the pathname to each file seems to cause
-    this bug.  This seems to work correctly if the path string
-    in WHERE is only one deep.  The goal is to get the FIRST
-    filename in a list of filenames sorted by last modification
-    time.  BTW, this worked correctly on an AT&T 6386, but not
-    on the IBM AT-339 (8 Mhz).
- 
- 	WHERE=c:/dir1/dir2
- 
- 	#note that there are four .log files under WHERE
- 	list=`ls -t $WHERE/*.log`
- 
- 	#returns the first path/filename...as expected
- 	echo $list | sed 's/ .*$//'
- 
- 	#but now try to load it into a variable...
- 	#this doesn't load correctly
- 	FIRST=`echo $list | sed 's/ .*$//'`
- 	echo $FIRST
- 
- 	#but this DOES
- 	FIRST=$(echo $list | sed 's/ .*$//')
- 	echo $FIRST

I haven't tried anything like this so haven't had the problem.
I'm running Xenix at the moment so can't try it either.

- 2. Can't do a change word (cw) on the last word of a command
-    line vi edit.

This one I have had.  It's better now though, the previous version
(I have 2.3 upgraded from 2.2c) had this problem anywhere on
the command line if I remember correctly.

- 3. Also during command-line edit, '.' does not complete the
-    entire previous text modification command.

Agreed.  '.' only puts you back in insert mode.  It doesn't
repeat the inserted text as it should.  If memory serves me, it
won't repeat a case conversion '~' either.  This is also true
within the vi editor itself, or could be that was the previous
version also, I can't remember.

- 4. Can't ^c out of the command history edit.

This is not true on my system.  Do you have 'BREAK=ON' in
config.sys?  (could be this has nothing to do with it, although
I do have it in my config.sys)

- 5. Write two simple shell-scripts where one calls the other:
- 	   SCRIPT1.ksh:
- 		junk_var=surprise
- 		echo junk_var from script1 = $junk_var
- 		script2
- 
- 	   SCRIPT2.ksh:
- 		echo junk_var from script2 = $junk_var
- 
- 	Don't export ANYTHING.  Execute script1...well, can YOU
- 	guess what script2 outputs for junk_var?  It's NOT a null
- 	string as it's supposed to be.  I wonder if this has anything
- 	to do with BUG #1.

Haven't tried this one either, but v2.3 had some changes regarding
exporting of variables and aliases.  I've already deleted the stuff
you had above about system config., and forget what version you have.

- 6. Cpio won't return the files requested from an input file when given
-    wild card characters.

Or this one.

- Well, let's hear it from you fellow MKS users.  Sorry about the
- length but at least they're all in one place.  Flames Away!!!
- 
- 					J. R. Jones
- 					att!angate!bill!jjones

I agree there are some (I'd say minor) problems with the Toolkit, and
hopefully they will be fixed in the future.  I had the same problem
that was recently posted about a user-compiled program being deemed
"not-executable" by MKS sh.exe, and when I sent Gerry mail about it,
he was more than cooperative.  He requested a disk with the files in
question on it, which I sent, and I'm waiting for a reply.

Roger Cornelius        uunet!pdn!jc3b21!sherpa!rac