+------ Juanita Heieck wrote (Mon, 10-Aug-2009, 10:45 -0600):
|
| PS, the table with the boilerplate content
| that appears in every single system administration guide
| and some install books on d.s.c.needs to be updated first.
| This task should be fairly painless and fast for someone with expertise
| on the newer shells.
|
| Any takers?
|
| See the table, Shell Prompts in Command Examples
|
| http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/817-1985/vol1preface-11?a=view
Nita, presummably you are refering to Table P-2, p. 20. Correct?
The subsection header that you quote, "Shell Prompts in Command Examples"
might be promoted to the table title, currently "Shell Prompts". That may
well limit the need to change this table, as it only refers to the prompts
actually used in the current docs. It also finesses any questions about
the prompt settings of any default shell init scripts. If any additions
for other shells (e.g. tcsh, zsh) are to be made, perhaps that will be
appropriate only for a very small number of instances of this table?
For the purpose of discussion, here is an ascii rendering:
TABLE P-2 Shell Prompts
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Shell Prompt
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
C shell machine_name%
C shell for superuser machine_name#
Bourne shell and Korn shell $
Bourne shell and Korn shell for superuser #
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
AFAIK, no changes are required for ksh93, but I haven't yet done the
due diligence to verify that.
However, I will suggest this (strawman) format change:
TABLE P-2 Shell Prompts in Command Examples
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Shell User Prompt Superuser Prompt
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Korn shell $ #
Born again shell machine_name$ machine_name#
POSIX shell $ machine_name#
C shell machine_name% machine_name#
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is more compact, and I personally find it easier to read.
Using this format, other shell prompts can be added as a single table row.
For instance, a one line addition for tcsh might look like:
Tenex C shell machine_name> machine_name#
However, the rows that do not correspond to any existing examples in the
documentation may not be required to be in this table. If any root csh
examples remain, would it be desirable to change the root csh prompt to
distinguish it from the Bourne family synatx?
Finally, it may be desirable to synch these prompts (and the documents)
with the various default shell init scripts shipped with OpenSolaris.
I still need to do more due diligence for that, too.
Straying off-topic a bit more, about the document processing mechanics...
There is a free trial download for Epic (now called Arbortext Editor),
where (IIRC) the trial period is two weeks. I only found a Windows download.
Google found some references to Solaris versions, but I never determined
whether current versions, if any, are for SPARC or x86. Their web page
seems inclined to direct customers to a sales rep. ArborText was bought
by PTC in 2005. The new website is:
http://www.ptc.com/products/arbortext/
The "platform support" link appears to be more about software maintenance
rather than about on what computer systems the software runs.
Are there any known version skew problems with your version of Epic?
Best,
Chuck
