Last updated Jul '99 for pdksh-5.2.14.
       (check ftp://ftp.cs.mun.ca:/pub/pdksh/ or
        http://www.cs.mun.ca/~michael/pdksh/ for new versions/patches)

PD-ksh is a mostly complete AT&T ksh look-alike (see NOTES file for a list
of things not supported).  Work is mostly finished to make it fully
compatible with both POSIX and AT&T ksh (when the two don't conflict).

Since pdksh is free and compiles and runs on most common unix systems, it
is very useful in creating a consistent user interface across multiple
machines.  For example, in the CS dept. of MUN, pdksh is installed on a
variety of machines including Suns, HPs, DecStations, pcs running Linux,
etc., and is the login shell of ~5200 users.

PDksh is currently being maintained by Michael Rendell ([email protected]),
who took over from Simon J. Gerraty ([email protected]) at the later's
suggestion.  A short list of things that have been added since the last
public pdksh release (4.9) are auto-configuration, arrays, $(( .. )),
[[ .. ]], variable attributes, co-processes, extended file globbing,
many POSIXisms and many bug fixes.  See the NEWS and ChangeLog files for
other features added and bugs fixed.

Note that pdksh is provided AS IS, with NO WARRANTY, either expressed or
implied.  Also note that although the bulk of the code in pdksh is in the
public domain, some files are copyrighten (but freely distributable) and
subject to certain conditions (eg, don't remove copyright, document any
changes, etc.).  See the LEGAL file for details.

If you would like to be notified via email of new releases as they become
available, send mail to [email protected] with subject
"send release notifications" (or "don't send release notifications" to stop
them).


Files of interest:
       NEWS            short list of noticeable changes in various versions.
       CONTRIBUTORS    short history of pdksh, people who contributed, etc.
       NOTES           lists of known bugs in pdksh, at&t ksh, and posix.
       PROJECTS        list of things that need to be done in pdksh.
       BUG-REPORTS     list of recently reported bugs that have been fixed
                       and all reported bugs that haven't been fixed.
       LEGAL           A file detailing legal issues concerning pdksh.
       etc/*           system profile and kshrc files used by Simon J. Gerraty.
       misc/README*    readme files from previous versions.
       misc/Changes*   changelog files from previous versions.
       os2/*           files and info needed to compile ksh on os/2.
       tests/*         pdksh's regression testing system.


Compiling/Installing:

 The quick way:
       ./configure
       make
       make check      # optional
       make install    # will install /usr/local/bin/ksh
                       #  and /usr/local/man/man1/ksh.1
       [add path-to-installed-pdksh to /etc/shells]

 The more detailed description:
   * run "configure --help | your-favorite-pager" and look at the
     --enable-* and --disable-* options (they are at the end).
     Select any you options you wish to enable/disable
     (most people can skip this step).
   * run configure: this is a GNU autoconf configure script that will generate
     a Makefile and a config.h.  Some of the useful options to configure are:
       --prefix=PATH       indicates the directory tree under which the binary
                           and man page are installed (ie, PATH/bin/ksh and
                           PATH/man/man1/ksh.1).
                           The default prefix is /usr/local.
       --exec-prefix=PATH  overrides --prefix for machine dependent files
                           (ie, the ksh binary)
       --program-prefix=pd install binary and man page as pdksh and pdksh.1
       --verbose           show what is being defined as script runs
     Note that you don't have to build in the source directory.  To build
     in a separate directory, do something like:
               $ mkdir objs
               $ cd objs
               $ ../configure --verbose
               ....
               $ make
     See the file INSTALL for a more complete description of configure and its
     generic options (ksh specific options are documented in the --help output)
   * miscellaneous configuration notes:
       * If your make doesn't understand VPATH, you must compile in
         the source directory.
       * On DecStations, MIPS and SONY machines with older C compilers that
         can't handle "int * volatile x", you should use gcc or turn off
         optimization.  The problem is configure defines volatile to nothing
         since the compiler can't handle it properly, but the compiler does
         optimizations that the volatile is meant to prevent.   So.  Use gcc.
       * On MIPS RISC/os 5.0 systems, sysv environment, <signal.h> is
         messed up - it defines sigset_t, but not any of the rest of
         the posix signals (the sigset_t typedef should be in the
         ifdef KERNEL section) - also doesn't have waitpid() or wait3().
         Things compile up ok in the svr4 environment, but it dumps core
         in __start (perhaps our system doesn't have the full svr4
         environ?).  Try compiling in the bsd43 environ instead (still not
         perfect - see BUG-REPORTS file), using gcc - cc has problems with
         macro expansions in the argument of a macro (in this case, the ARGS
         macro).
       * On TitanOS (Stardent/Titan), use `CC="cc -43" configure ...'.
         When configure finishes, edit config.h, undef HAVE_DIRENT_H and
         define HAVE_SYS_DIR_H (the dirent.h header file is broken).
       * On Linux (red hat distribution), check that /dev/tty has mode 0666
         (not mode 0644).  If it has the wrong permissions, ksh will print
         warnings about not being able to do job control.
       * on NeXT machines (3.2, probably other releases), the siglist.out file
         won't be generated correctly if you try to use the system's compiler
         (it has a broken cc -E and strange header files).  There are two
         ways to make it work:
           1) if you have gcc, use it (for everything).  Alternatively,
              force configure to use it for CPP, i.e., use
                 CPP="gcc -E" configure ...
           2) Force configure to use some extra CPPFLAGS, using
                 CPPFLAGS="XXX" configure ...
              where XXX is obtained from running "cc -v YYY.c" on some
              C file.  Look at the options passed to cpp (there are lots
              of them...) and replace the XXX above with them.
         Make sure you do a "make distclean" (or "rm config.cache") if
         you re-run configure with a difference CPP or CPPFLAGS.
         Also note that if you are building multiple arch binaries, you
         will have to specify both CC and CPP.
   * run make: everything should compile and link without problems.
   * run make check: this fires up a perl script that checks for some known
     and some fixed bugs.  The script prints pass/fail for tests it expected
     to pass/fail, and PASS/FAIL for tests it expected to fail/pass.  If you
     don't have perl, or if your perl doesn't work (most common problem is
     the .ph header files are missing or broken), you can run
         ENV= path-to-pdksh-executable misc/Bugs path-to-pdksh-executable
     instead.
   * run make install: this installs ksh (in /usr/local/bin/ksh by default,
     or where ever you told configure to put things).
   * add path-to-installed-pdksh to /etc/shells if it's not already there.
     This is only needed if you intend to use pdksh as a login shell (things
     like ftp won't allow users to connect in if their shell isn't in this
     file).

The following is a list of machines that pdksh is reported to work on:
   -/PC Linux 1.x,2.x
   -/PC NetBSD 0.9a
   -/PC BSDI 1.1
   -/PC FreeBSD 2.x, 3.x
   -/PC OpenBSD
   -/PC Interactive/Sunsoft 3.0.1 and 4.1 (note that problems have been
           reported with isc3.2 - see the BUG-REPORTS file)
   -/PC OS/2
   Commadore/Amiga NetBSD 1.0
   Dec/alpha OSF/1 v2.x, v3.x
   Dec/alpha NetBSD 1.1B
   Dec/pmax Ultrix 4.2
   Dec/vax Ultrix 2.2 (not tested recently :-))
   Dec/vax 4.3BSD+NFS (MtXinu) (not tested recently :-))
   HP/pa HP-UX 9.01
   IBM/RS/6000 AIX 3.2.5
   MIPS/m120 RISC/os 5.0 (bsd43 environ)
   NeXT NeXTStep 3.2
   SGI/IRIX 6.2
   Sun/sun4 SunOS 4.1.3, 4.1.4
   Sun/sun4 Solaris 2.x
   Sun/sun386i SunOS 4.0.2
   Sun/sun3 SunOS 4.0.3, 4.1.1_U1
   Stardent/TitanOS 4.2


Newer versions of pdksh may be available from
       ftp://ftp.cs.mun.ca:/pub/pdksh/
you may want to check for one if you run into any problems, as the problem may
already be fixed (you can get new release notifications automatically - see
above).  The file pdksh-unstable-XXX.tar.gz has the very latest version which
may not compile (it is generated automatically when changes are detected
in the main source repository) - it is for those who want to follow
changes as they are made.

You can send bug reports, fixes, and enhancements to [email protected] (please
don't assume I will see bug reports that are posted to some newsgroup or
mailing list - I probably won't).
If you are reporting a bug (with or without a fix), please include
       * the version of pdksh you are using (see version.c, or, if you are
         running pdksh, try echo $KSH_VERSION),
       * the machine, operating system and compiler you are using,
       * and a description of how to repeat the bug (a small shell
         script that demonstrates the bug is best).
as well as the following, if relevant (if you aren't sure, include them)
       * what options you are using (both configure options and set -o options)
       * the output of configure, with the verbose flag
         (eg, make distclean; ./configure --verbose)
       * the contents of config.log (this is created by the configure script)
       * if you are using gcc (the GNU C compiler), which version it is.

BTW, THE MOST FREQUENTLY REPORTED BUG IS
       echo hi | read a; echo $a       # Does not print hi
I'm aware of this and there is no need to report it.

Michael Rendell, [email protected]

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