On Thu, Jun 7, 2012 at 3:38 PM, David Korn <[email protected]> wrote:
> cc: [email protected] [email protected] 
> [email protected]
> Subject: Re: grep&xargs ready for libcmd?
> --------
>
> Can someone explain to me why it matters whether the grep family
> is in libcmd rather than in a separate library?

KISS principle maybe? :)

IMHO it matters a lot if the *default* ksh93 built from the ast-ksh
package (NOT ast-open, which has a much smaller installation base) has
these buitins compiled in by default because it means these builtins
are available universally *everywhere* where ksh93 scripts are
running. This is very helpful when you try to deploy products and have
to deal with platforms like AIX, HP/UX or Solaris where the /usr/bin
versions of grep, od, tr are really awful nightmares and alternatives
are not always available (for example on Solaris "better" versions are
in /usr/xpg4/bin and /usr/xpg6/bin, however these are in optional
packages which are often not installed and even those versions are
often badly tested by Sun/Oracle. Often they're just dummies good
enough to pass the SUS test suites like VSC but are no good in a
production environment).

So unless ast-ksh starts shipping a 2nd kind of libcmd with grep, od,
tr, xargs included it may be better to just move them into libcmd for
ksh93u+. It can't be harmful.

Irek
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