2 Last updated Jul '99 for pdksh-5.2.14.
3 (check ftp://ftp.cs.mun.ca:/pub/pdksh/ or
4 http://www.cs.mun.ca/~michael/pdksh/ for new versions/patches)
6 PD-ksh is a mostly complete AT&T ksh look-alike (see NOTES file for a list
7 of things not supported). Work is mostly finished to make it fully
8 compatible with both POSIX and AT&T ksh (when the two don't conflict).
10 Since pdksh is free and compiles and runs on most common unix systems, it
11 is very useful in creating a consistent user interface across multiple
12 machines. For example, in the CS dept. of MUN, pdksh is installed on a
13 variety of machines including Suns, HPs, DecStations, pcs running Linux,
14 etc., and is the login shell of ~5200 users.
16 PDksh is currently being maintained by Michael Rendell (michael@cs.mun.ca),
17 who took over from Simon J. Gerraty (sjg@zen.void.oz.au) at the later's
18 suggestion. A short list of things that have been added since the last
19 public pdksh release (4.9) are auto-configuration, arrays, $(( .. )),
20 [[ .. ]], variable attributes, co-processes, extended file globbing,
21 many POSIXisms and many bug fixes. See the NEWS and ChangeLog files for
22 other features added and bugs fixed.
24 Note that pdksh is provided AS IS, with NO WARRANTY, either expressed or
25 implied. Also note that although the bulk of the code in pdksh is in the
26 public domain, some files are copyrighten (but freely distributable) and
27 subject to certain conditions (eg, don't remove copyright, document any
28 changes, etc.). See the LEGAL file for details.
30 If you would like to be notified via email of new releases as they become
31 available, send mail to pdksh-request@cs.mun.ca with subject
32 "send release notifications" (or "don't send release notifications" to stop
37 NEWS short list of noticeable changes in various versions.
38 CONTRIBUTORS short history of pdksh, people who contributed, etc.
39 NOTES lists of known bugs in pdksh, at&t ksh, and posix.
40 PROJECTS list of things that need to be done in pdksh.
41 BUG-REPORTS list of recently reported bugs that have been fixed
42 and all reported bugs that haven't been fixed.
43 LEGAL A file detailing legal issues concerning pdksh.
44 etc/* system profile and kshrc files used by Simon J. Gerraty.
45 misc/README* readme files from previous versions.
46 misc/Changes* changelog files from previous versions.
47 os2/* files and info needed to compile ksh on os/2.
48 tests/* pdksh's regression testing system.
57 make install # will install /usr/local/bin/ksh
58 # and /usr/local/man/man1/ksh.1
59 [add path-to-installed-pdksh to /etc/shells]
61 The more detailed description:
62 * run "configure --help | your-favorite-pager" and look at the
63 --enable-* and --disable-* options (they are at the end).
64 Select any you options you wish to enable/disable
65 (most people can skip this step).
66 * run configure: this is a GNU autoconf configure script that will generate
67 a Makefile and a config.h. Some of the useful options to configure are:
68 --prefix=PATH indicates the directory tree under which the binary
69 and man page are installed (ie, PATH/bin/ksh and
71 The default prefix is /usr/local.
72 --exec-prefix=PATH overrides --prefix for machine dependent files
74 --program-prefix=pd install binary and man page as pdksh and pdksh.1
75 --verbose show what is being defined as script runs
76 Note that you don't have to build in the source directory. To build
77 in a separate directory, do something like:
80 $ ../configure --verbose
83 See the file INSTALL for a more complete description of configure and its
84 generic options (ksh specific options are documented in the --help output)
85 * miscellaneous configuration notes:
86 * If your make doesn't understand VPATH, you must compile in
88 * On DecStations, MIPS and SONY machines with older C compilers that
89 can't handle "int * volatile x", you should use gcc or turn off
90 optimization. The problem is configure defines volatile to nothing
91 since the compiler can't handle it properly, but the compiler does
92 optimizations that the volatile is meant to prevent. So. Use gcc.
93 * On MIPS RISC/os 5.0 systems, sysv environment, <signal.h> is
94 messed up - it defines sigset_t, but not any of the rest of
95 the posix signals (the sigset_t typedef should be in the
96 ifdef KERNEL section) - also doesn't have waitpid() or wait3().
97 Things compile up ok in the svr4 environment, but it dumps core
98 in __start (perhaps our system doesn't have the full svr4
99 environ?). Try compiling in the bsd43 environ instead (still not
100 perfect - see BUG-REPORTS file), using gcc - cc has problems with
101 macro expansions in the argument of a macro (in this case, the ARGS
103 * On TitanOS (Stardent/Titan), use `CC="cc -43" configure ...'.
104 When configure finishes, edit config.h, undef HAVE_DIRENT_H and
105 define HAVE_SYS_DIR_H (the dirent.h header file is broken).
106 * On Linux (red hat distribution), check that /dev/tty has mode 0666
107 (not mode 0644). If it has the wrong permissions, ksh will print
108 warnings about not being able to do job control.
109 * on NeXT machines (3.2, probably other releases), the siglist.out file
110 won't be generated correctly if you try to use the system's compiler
111 (it has a broken cc -E and strange header files). There are two
112 ways to make it work:
113 1) if you have gcc, use it (for everything). Alternatively,
114 force configure to use it for CPP, i.e., use
115 CPP="gcc -E" configure ...
116 2) Force configure to use some extra CPPFLAGS, using
117 CPPFLAGS="XXX" configure ...
118 where XXX is obtained from running "cc -v YYY.c" on some
119 C file. Look at the options passed to cpp (there are lots
120 of them...) and replace the XXX above with them.
121 Make sure you do a "make distclean" (or "rm config.cache") if
122 you re-run configure with a difference CPP or CPPFLAGS.
123 Also note that if you are building multiple arch binaries, you
124 will have to specify both CC and CPP.
125 * run make: everything should compile and link without problems.
126 * run make check: this fires up a perl script that checks for some known
127 and some fixed bugs. The script prints pass/fail for tests it expected
128 to pass/fail, and PASS/FAIL for tests it expected to fail/pass. If you
129 don't have perl, or if your perl doesn't work (most common problem is
130 the .ph header files are missing or broken), you can run
131 ENV= path-to-pdksh-executable misc/Bugs path-to-pdksh-executable
133 * run make install: this installs ksh (in /usr/local/bin/ksh by default,
134 or where ever you told configure to put things).
135 * add path-to-installed-pdksh to /etc/shells if it's not already there.
136 This is only needed if you intend to use pdksh as a login shell (things
137 like ftp won't allow users to connect in if their shell isn't in this
140 The following is a list of machines that pdksh is reported to work on:
144 -/PC FreeBSD 2.x, 3.x
146 -/PC Interactive/Sunsoft 3.0.1 and 4.1 (note that problems have been
147 reported with isc3.2 - see the BUG-REPORTS file)
149 Commadore/Amiga NetBSD 1.0
150 Dec/alpha OSF/1 v2.x, v3.x
151 Dec/alpha NetBSD 1.1B
153 Dec/vax Ultrix 2.2 (not tested recently :-))
154 Dec/vax 4.3BSD+NFS (MtXinu) (not tested recently :-))
156 IBM/RS/6000 AIX 3.2.5
157 MIPS/m120 RISC/os 5.0 (bsd43 environ)
160 Sun/sun4 SunOS 4.1.3, 4.1.4
162 Sun/sun386i SunOS 4.0.2
163 Sun/sun3 SunOS 4.0.3, 4.1.1_U1
167 Newer versions of pdksh may be available from
168 ftp://ftp.cs.mun.ca:/pub/pdksh/
169 you may want to check for one if you run into any problems, as the problem may
170 already be fixed (you can get new release notifications automatically - see
171 above). The file pdksh-unstable-XXX.tar.gz has the very latest version which
172 may not compile (it is generated automatically when changes are detected
173 in the main source repository) - it is for those who want to follow
174 changes as they are made.
176 You can send bug reports, fixes, and enhancements to pdksh@cs.mun.ca (please
177 don't assume I will see bug reports that are posted to some newsgroup or
178 mailing list - I probably won't).
179 If you are reporting a bug (with or without a fix), please include
180 * the version of pdksh you are using (see version.c, or, if you are
181 running pdksh, try echo $KSH_VERSION),
182 * the machine, operating system and compiler you are using,
183 * and a description of how to repeat the bug (a small shell
184 script that demonstrates the bug is best).
185 as well as the following, if relevant (if you aren't sure, include them)
186 * what options you are using (both configure options and set -o options)
187 * the output of configure, with the verbose flag
188 (eg, make distclean; ./configure --verbose)
189 * the contents of config.log (this is created by the configure script)
190 * if you are using gcc (the GNU C compiler), which version it is.
192 BTW, THE MOST FREQUENTLY REPORTED BUG IS
193 echo hi | read a; echo $a # Does not print hi
194 I'm aware of this and there is no need to report it.
196 Michael Rendell, michael@cs.mun.ca