79 lines
3.2 KiB
Markdown
79 lines
3.2 KiB
Markdown
# KornShell 93u+m
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This repository is used to develop bugfixes
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to the last stable release (93u+ 2012-08-01) of
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[ksh93](http://www.kornshell.com/),
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formerly developed by AT&T Software Technology (AST).
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The sources in this repository were forked from the
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Github [AST repository](https://github.com/att/ast)
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which is no longer under active development.
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To see what's fixed, see [NEWS](https://github.com/modernish/ast/blame/master/NEWS)
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and click on commit messages for full details.
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To see what's left to fix, see [TODO](./TODO).
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## Policy
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1. No new features. Bug fixes only.
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2. No major rewrites. No refactoring code that is not fully understood.
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3. No changes in documented behaviour, except if required for compliance with the
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[POSIX shell language standard](https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/contents.html)
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which David Korn [intended](http://www.kornshell.com/info/) for ksh to follow.
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4. No 100% bug compatibility. Broken and undocumented behaviour gets fixed.
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5. No bureaucracy, no formalities. Just fix it, or report it: create issues,
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send pull requests. Every interested party is invited to contribute.
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6. To help increase everyone's understanding of this code base, fixes and
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significant changes should be fully documented in commit messages.
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## Why?
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Between 2017 and 2020 there was an ultimately unsuccessful
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[attempt](https://github.com/att/ast/tree/2020.0.1)
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to breathe new life into the KornShell by extensively refactoring the last
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unstable AST beta version (93v-).
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While that ksh2020 branch is now abandoned and still has many critical bugs,
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it also had a lot of bugs fixed. More importantly, the AST issue tracker
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now contains a lot of documentation on how to fix those bugs, which makes
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it possible to backport many of them to the last stable release instead.
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In February 2020, having concluded the AST 93v- beta was too broken to
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base new work on, others decided to start a new fork based on the last stable
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93u+ 2012-08-01 release. Unfortunately, as of June 2020, the new
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[ksh-community](https://github.com/ksh-community/ksh/)
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organisation is yet to see any significant activity four months after its
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bootstrapping. I hope that will change; I am ready to join efforts with them
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at any time, as well as anyone else who wants to contribute.
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The last stable ksh93 release from 2012 is the least buggy release currently
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available, but it still has many serious bugs. So it is well past time to
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start fixing those bugs, leave the rest of the code alone, and get an
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improved release out there.
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## Build
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After cloning this repo, cd to the top directory of it and run:
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```sh
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./bin/package make
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```
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If you have trouble or want to tune the binaries, you may pass additional
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compiler and linker flags by appending it to the command shown above. E.g.:
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```sh
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./bin/package make \
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SHELL=/bin/bash CCFLAGS="-xc99 -D_XPG6 -m64 -xO4" LDFLAGS="-m64"
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```
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For more information run
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```sh
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bin/package help
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```
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Many other commands in this repo self-document via the `--help`, `--man` and
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`--html` options; those that do have no separate manual page.
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## Test
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After compiling, you can run the regression tests.
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Start by reading the information printed by:
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```sh
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./bin/shtests --man
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```
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