Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cwjcc!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!att!cbnews!lvc
From: lvc@cbnews.ATT.COM (Lawrence V. Cipriani)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: ksh named parameter, question
Summary: it's a bug
Message-ID: <4069@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 16 Feb 89 14:11:00 GMT
References: <254@ai.etl.army.mil>
Distribution: usa
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 40

In article <254@ai.etl.army.mil>, richr@ai.etl.army.mil (Richard Rosenthal) writes:
>     Can someone explain this behavior in ksh on both B4.3 and SysV?
>     $ typeset TMOUT
>     integer TMOUT

You are asking ksh to tell you the type and attributes of TMOUT, so it
told you.

>     $ print $TMOUT
>     0

The current value of TMOUT is 0.

>     $ typeset TMOUT=
>     $ print $TMOUT
>     92328

According to the ksh book, this is not a legal form.  My opinion is that
you should get a syntax error message, however ksh sets it to some garbage
value.  The version of ksh I'm working with now sets it to 0.

>     $ typeset TMOUT=0
>     $ print $TMOUT
>     0
> 
>     On another machine TMOUT magically becomes 4 instead of 92328
>     and that is a real problem!  Then I constantly get 60 second
>     timeout warnings.

Like I said, some "garbage" value.  Don't count on this behavior.  Execute:

	$ TMOUT=3600

and you'll only get the warning after an hour (3600 seconds) of inactivity.
If that's too short, set it to something higher.  There is a maximum value
of TMOUT compiled into ksh.  Setting TMOUT higher than that will result in
it being set to the maximum value.
-- 

Larry Cipriani, att!cbnews!lvc or lvc@cbnews.att.com