TSH(1) General Commands Manual TSH(1)
NAME
tsh - Thompson shell (command interpreter)
SYNOPSIS
tsh [- | -c [string] | -t | file [arg1 ...]]
DESCRIPTION
Tsh is a port of the standard command interpreter from Version 6 (V6)
UNIX. It may be used either as an interactive shell or as a non-
interactive shell. Throughout this manual, `(+)' indicates those cases
where tsh is known to differ from the original sh(1), as it appeared in
Version 6 (V6) UNIX.
The options are as follows:
- The shell reads and executes command lines from the standard
input until end-of-file or exit.
-c [string]
If a string is specified, the shell executes it as a command
line and exits. Otherwise, the shell treats it as the - option.
-t The shell reads a single line from the standard input, executes
it as a command line, and exits.
The shell may also be invoked non-interactively to read, interpret, and
execute an ASCII command file. The specified file and any arguments
are treated as positional parameters (see Parameter substitution below)
during execution of the command file.
Otherwise, if no arguments are specified and if both the standard input
and standard error are connected to a terminal, the shell is
interactive. An interactive shell prompts a regular user with a `% '
or with a `# ' for the superuser before reading each command line from
the terminal.
Metacharacters
A syntactic metacharacter is any one of the following:
| ^ ; & ( ) < > space tab
When such a character is unquoted, it has special meaning to the shell.
The shell uses it to separate words (see Commands and Command lines
below). A quoting metacharacter is any one of the following:
" ' \
See Quoting below. The substitution metacharacter is a:
$
See Parameter substitution below. Finally, a pattern metacharacter is
any one of the following:
* ? [
See File name generation below.
Commands
Each command is a sequence of non-blank command arguments, or words,
separated by one or more blanks (spaces or tabs). The first argument
specifies the name of a command to be executed. Except for certain
special arguments described below, the arguments other than the command
name are passed without interpretation to the invoked command.
If the first argument names a special command, the shell executes it
(see Special commands below). Otherwise, the shell treats it as an
external utility or command, which is located as follows.
(+) tsh expects to find its external utilities (glob, if, goto, and
fd2) in the /usr/local/libexec/etsh-5.4.0/tsh directory, not by
searching the environment variable PATH. Notice that these external
utilities are special to the shell and are required for full
functionality.
(+) Otherwise, if the command name contains no `/' characters, the
sequence of directories in the environment variable PATH is searched
for the first occurrence of an executable file by that name, which the
shell attempts to execute. However, if the command name contains one
or more `/' characters, the shell attempts to execute it without
performing any PATH search.
(+) If an executable file does not begin with the proper magic number
or a `#!shell' sequence, it is assumed to be an ASCII command file, and
a new shell is automatically invoked to execute it. The environment
variable EXECSHELL specifies the shell which is invoked to execute such
a file.
If a command cannot be found or executed, a diagnostic is printed.
Command lines
Commands separated by | or ^ constitute a chain of filters, or a
pipeline. The standard output of each command but the last is taken as
the standard input of the next command. Each command is run as a
separate process, connected by pipes (see pipe(2)) to its neighbors.
A command line, or list, consists of one or more pipelines separated,
and perhaps terminated by ; or &. The semicolon designates sequential
execution. The ampersand designates asynchronous execution, which
causes the preceding pipeline to be executed without waiting for it to
finish. The process ID of each command in such a pipeline is reported,
so that it may be used if necessary for a subsequent kill(1).
A list contained within parentheses such as ( list ) is executed in a
subshell and may appear in place of a simple command as a filter.
If a command line is syntactically incorrect, a diagnostic is printed.
Termination reporting
All terminations other than exit and interrupt are considered to be
abnormal. If a sequential process terminates abnormally, a message is
printed. The termination report for an asynchronous process is given
upon execution of the first sequential command subsequent to its
termination, or when the wait special command is executed. The
following is a list of the possible termination messages:
Hangup
Quit
Illegal instruction
Trace/BPT trap
IOT trap
EMT trap
Floating exception
Killed
Bus error
Memory fault
Bad system call
Broken pipe
For an asynchronous process, its process ID is prepended to the
appropriate message. If a core image is produced, ` -- Core dumped' is
appended to the appropriate message.
I/O redirection
Each of the following argument forms is interpreted as a redirection by
the shell itself. Such a redirection may appear anywhere among the
arguments of a simple command, or before or after a parenthesized
command list, and is associated with that command or command list.
A redirection of the form <arg causes the file arg to be used as the
standard input (file descriptor 0) for the associated command.
A redirection of the form >arg causes the file arg to be used as the
standard output (file descriptor 1) for the associated command. If arg
does not already exist, it is created; otherwise, it is truncated at
the outset.
A redirection of the form >>arg is the same as >arg, except if arg
already exists the command output is always appended to the end of the
file.
For example, either of the following command lines:
% date >index.txt ; pwd >>index.txt ; ls -l >>index.txt
% ( date ; pwd ; ls -l ) >index.txt
creates on the file `index.txt', the current date and time, followed by
the name and a long listing of the current working directory.
A >arg or >>arg redirection associated with any but the last command of
a pipeline is ineffectual, as is a <arg redirection with any but the
first.
The standard error (file descriptor 2) is never subject to redirection
by the shell itself. Thus, commands may write diagnostics to a
location where they have a chance to be seen. However, fd2(1) provides
a way to redirect the diagnostic output to another location.
If the file for a redirection cannot be opened or created, a diagnostic
is printed.
Quoting
The shell treats all quoted characters literally, including characters
which have special meaning to the shell (see Metacharacters above). If
such characters are quoted, they represent themselves and may be passed
as part of arguments.
Individual characters, and sequences of characters, are quoted when
enclosed by a matched pair of double (") or single (') quotes. For
example:
% awk '{ print NR "\t" $0 }' README ^ more
causes awk(1) to write each line from the `README' file, preceded by
its line number and a tab, to the standard output which is piped to
more(1) for viewing. The outer single quotes prevent the shell from
trying to interpret any part of the string, which is then passed as a
single argument to awk.
An individual backslash (\) quotes, or escapes, the next individual
character. A backslash followed by a newline is a special case which
allows continuation of command-line input onto the next line. Each
backslash-newline sequence in the input is translated into a blank.
If a double or single quote appears but is not part of a matched pair,
a diagnostic is printed.
Parameter substitution
When the shell is invoked as a non-interactive command, it has
additional string processing capabilities which are not available when
it is interactive. A non-interactive shell may be invoked as follows:
tsh name [arg1 ...]
If the first character of name is not -, it is taken as the name of an
ASCII command file, or shell script, which is opened as the standard
input for a new shell instance. Thus, the new shell reads and
interprets command lines from the named file.
Otherwise, name is taken as one of the shell options, and a new shell
instance is invoked to read and interpret command lines from its
standard input. However, notice that the -c option followed by a
string is the one case where the shell does not read and interpret
command lines from its standard input. Instead, the string itself is
taken as a command line and executed.
In each command line, an unquoted character sequence of the form $N,
where N is a digit, is treated as a positional parameter by the shell.
Each occurrence of a positional parameter in the command line is
substituted with the value of the Nth argument to the invocation of the
shell (argN). $0 is substituted with name.
In both interactive and non-interactive shells, $$ is substituted with
the process ID of the current shell. The value is represented as a
5-digit ASCII string, padded on the left with zeros when the process ID
is less than 10000.
All substitution on a command line is performed before the line is
interpreted. Thus, no action which alters the value of any parameter
can have any effect on a reference to that parameter occurring on the
same line.
A positional-parameter value may contain any number of metacharacters.
Each one which is unquoted, or unescaped, within a positional-parameter
value retains its special meaning when the value is substituted in a
command line by the invoked shell.
Take the following two shell invocations for example:
% tsh -c '$1' 'echo Hello World! >/dev/null'
% tsh -c '$1' 'echo Hello World! \>/dev/null'
Hello World! >/dev/null
In the first invocation, the > in the value substituted by $1 retains
its special meaning. This causes all output from echo(1) to be
redirected to /dev/null. However, in the second invocation, the
meaning of > is escaped by \ in the value substituted by $1. This
causes the shell to pass `>/dev/null' as a single argument to echo
instead of interpreting it as a redirection.
File name generation
Prior to executing an external command, the shell scans each argument
for unquoted *, ?, or [ characters. If one or more of these characters
appears, the argument is treated as a pattern, and the shell uses
glob(1) to search for file names which match it. Otherwise, the
argument is used as is.
The meaning of each pattern character is as follows:
o The * character in a pattern matches any string of characters in a
file name (including the null string).
o The ? character in a pattern matches any single character in a file
name.
o The [...] brackets in a pattern specifies a class of characters
which matches any single file-name character in the class. Within
the brackets, each character is taken to be a member of the class.
A pair of characters separated by an unquoted - specifies the class
as a range which matches each character lexically between the first
and second member of the pair, inclusive. A - matches itself when
quoted or when first or last in the class.
Any other character in a pattern matches itself in a file name.
Notice that the `.' character at the beginning of a file name, or
immediately following a `/', is always special in that it must be
matched explicitly. The same is true of the `/' character itself.
If the pattern contains no `/' characters, the current directory is
always used. Otherwise, the specified directory is the one obtained by
taking the pattern up to the last `/' before the first unquoted *, ?,
or [. The matching process matches the remainder of the pattern after
this `/' against the files in the specified directory.
In any event, a list of file names is obtained from the current (or
specified) directory which match the given pattern. This list is
sorted in ascending ASCII order, and the new sequence of arguments
replaces the given pattern. The same process is carried out for each
of the given pattern arguments; the resulting lists are not merged.
Finally, the shell attempts to execute the command with the resulting
argument list.
If a pattern argument refers to a directory which cannot be opened, a
`No directory' diagnostic is printed.
If a command has only one pattern argument, a `No match' diagnostic is
printed if it fails to match any files. However, if a command has more
than one pattern argument, a diagnostic is printed only when they all
fail to match any files. Otherwise, each pattern argument failing to
match any files is removed from the argument list.
End of file
An end-of-file in the shell's input causes it to exit. If the shell is
interactive, this means it exits by default when the user types an EOT
(^D) at the prompt. If desired, the user may change or disable
interactive shell EOT exit behavior with stty(1).
Special commands
The following commands are special in that they are executed by the
shell without creating a new process.
: [arg ...]
Does nothing and sets the exit status to zero.
chdir dir [...]
Changes the shell's current working directory to dir.
exit Causes the shell to cease execution of a file. This means exit
has no effect at the prompt of an interactive shell.
login [arg ...]
Replaces the current interactive shell with login(1).
newgrp [arg ...]
Replaces the current interactive shell with newgrp(1).
shift Shifts all positional-parameter values to the left by 1, so that
the old value of $2 becomes the new value of $1 and so forth.
The value of $0 does not shift.
wait Waits for all asynchronous processes to terminate, reporting on
abnormal terminations.
Signals (+)
If the shell is interactive, it ignores the SIGINT, SIGQUIT, and
SIGTERM signals (see signal(3)). However, if the shell is invoked with
any option argument, it only ignores SIGINT and SIGQUIT.
If SIGINT, SIGQUIT, or SIGTERM is already ignored when the shell
starts, it is also ignored by the current shell and all of its child
processes. Otherwise, SIGINT and SIGQUIT are reset to the default
action for sequential child processes, whereas SIGTERM is reset to the
default action for all child processes.
For any signal not mentioned above, the shell inherits the signal
action (default or ignore) from its parent process and passes it to its
child processes.
Asynchronous child processes always ignore both SIGINT and SIGQUIT.
Also, if such a process has not redirected its input with a <, |, or ^,
the shell automatically redirects it to come from /dev/null.
EXIT STATUS (+)
The exit status of the shell is generally that of the last command
executed prior to end-of-file or exit.
However, if the shell is interactive and detects an error, it exits
with a non-zero status if the user types an EOT at the next prompt.
Otherwise, if the shell is non-interactive and is reading commands from
a file, any shell-detected error causes the shell to cease execution of
that file. This results in a non-zero exit status.
A non-zero exit status returned by the shell itself is always one of
the values described in the following list, each of which may be
accompanied by an appropriate diagnostic:
2 The shell detected a syntax, redirection, or other error not
described in this list.
125 An external command was found but did not begin with the proper
magic number or a `#!shell' sequence, and a valid shell was not
specified by EXECSHELL with which to execute it.
126 An external command was found but could not be executed.
127 An external command was not found.
>128 An external command was terminated by a signal.
ENVIRONMENT (+)
Notice that the concept of `user environment' was not defined in
Version 6 (V6) UNIX. Thus, use of the following environment variables
by this port of the shell is an enhancement:
EXECSHELL
If set to a non-empty string, the value of this variable is
taken as the path name of the shell which is invoked to execute
an external command when it does not begin with the proper magic
number or a `#!shell' sequence.
PATH If set to a non-empty string, the value of this variable is
taken as the sequence of directories used by the shell to search
for external commands. Notice that the Version 6 (V6) UNIX
shell always used the equivalent of `.:/bin:/usr/bin', not PATH.
TES The shell sets TES in the environment in order to convey the
current tsh exit status to the user as an unsigned decimal
integer. The exit status was always here before. It was simply
not conveyed directly, via `$?' for example, requiring the user
to find another way to see it.
NOTE: `$?' is not available here now, as it would be
incompatible with the original V6 Thompson shell.
FILES
/dev/null
default source of input for asynchronous processes
SEE ALSO
awk(1), echo(1), env(1), etsh(1), expr(1), fd2(1), glob(1), goto(1),
grep(1), if(1), kill(1), login(1), newgrp(1), stty(1)
Etsh home page:
https://etsh.nl/
`The UNIX Time-Sharing System' (CACM, July, 1974):
https://etsh.nl/history/unix/
gives the theory of operation of both the system and the shell.
HISTORY
A sh command appeared as /bin/sh in Version 1 (V1) UNIX.
The Thompson shell was used as the standard command interpreter through
Version 6 (V6) UNIX. Then, in Version 7 (V7) UNIX, it was replaced by
the Bourne shell. However, the Thompson shell was still distributed
with the system as osh because of known portability problems with the
Bourne shell's memory management in Version 7 (V7) UNIX.
AUTHORS
This port of the Thompson shell is derived from Version 6 (V6) UNIX
/usr/source/s2/sh.c, which was principally written by Ken Thompson of
Bell Labs. Jeffrey Allen Neitzel <
[email protected]> ported and maintains it
as tsh(1).
LICENSE
See either the LICENSE file which is distributed with etsh or
https://etsh.nl/license/ for full details.
CAVEATS
Since tsh does not read any startup files, it should not be added to
the shell database (see shells(5)) unless the system administrator is
willing to deal with this fact.
Tsh has no facilities for setting, unsetting, or otherwise manipulating
environment variables within the shell. This must be accomplished by
using other tools such as env(1).
Like the original, tsh is not 8-bit clean as it uses the high-order bit
of characters for quoting. Thus, the only complete character set it
can handle is 7-bit ASCII.
Notice that certain shell oddities were historically undocumented in
this manual page. Particularly noteworthy is the fact that there is no
such thing as a usage error. Thus, the following shell invocations are
perfectly valid:
tsh -cats_are_nice!!! ': "Good kitty =)"'
tsh -tabbies_are_too!
tsh -s
The first two cases correspond to the -c and -t options respectively;
the third case corresponds to the - option.
BUGS
The shell makes no attempt to recover from read(2) errors and exits if
this system call fails.
SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS
This port of the Thompson shell does not support set-ID execution. If
the effective user (group) ID of the shell process is not equal to its
real user (group) ID when an instance of it starts up, the shell prints
the following diagnostic and exits with a non-zero status.
Set-ID execution denied
If the shell did support set-ID execution, it could possibly allow a
user to violate the security policy on a host where the shell is used.
For example, if the shell were running a setuid-root command file, a
regular user could possibly invoke an interactive root shell as a
result.
This is not a bug. It is simply how the shell works. Thus, tsh does
not support set-ID execution. This is a proactive measure to avoid
problems, nothing more.
etsh-5.4.0 March 28, 2019 TSH(1)
