Re: which is the basic differences between the shells?

2010-06-07 Thread Giorgos Keramidas 
On Sun, 6 Jun 2010 07:57:51 -0400, Jerry freebsd.u...@seibercom.net wrote:
 On Sun, 06 Jun 2010 14:19:08 +0300
 Giorgos Keramidas keram...@ceid.upatras.gr articulated:
 You can always install bash with pkg_add.  The default package is
 not built as a static binary, but you can compile a static bash
 binary from its port:

 # cd /usr/ports/shells/bash
 # make WITH_STATIC_BASH=1 install clean

 I thought that was what this port was for:

 Port:   bash-static-4.1.5_2
 Path:   /usr/ports/shells/bash-static
 Info:   The GNU Project's Bourne Again SHell

Yes, that's what bash-static enables.

I only mentioned WITH_STATIC_BASH because it's what I usually prefer to
avoid gettext/libintl.so troubles when portupgrade is still half-done
and I want to open a new screen window or xterm.

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Re: which is the basic differences between the shells?

2010-06-07 Thread Chip Camden 
On Jun 06 2010 22:00, Chad Perrin wrote:
 On Sun, Jun 06, 2010 at 11:32:58AM -0700, Chip Camden wrote:
   
  I was a tcsh user before switching to zsh.  But I was raised on the
  Bourne Shell, and used Korn shell a lot in the 90s.  The C-shell versions
  of control flow commands always tripped me up, even though they're
  arguably more sane -- just because the sh versions flow off the
  fingertips.  So sh-compatibility was my main reason, but I like the
  features of csh that zsh cherry-picked.
 
 Given my preference for (t)csh syntax over sh syntax for an interactive
 shell, I guess that doesn't give me a whole lot of motivation to try it
 out.  Another response to my question discusses some other benefits,
 though. . . .
 
 Thanks for your perspective.
 

My pleasure, Chad.  If I had learned csh first, I'd probably stick with
tcsh myself.

I'd also like to publicly thank you on this list for encouraging me to
try FreeBSD.  I absolutely love it.

-- 
Sterling (Chip) Camden | camdensoftware.com | chipstips.com | chipsquips.com
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Re: which is the basic differences between the shells?

2010-06-07 Thread Polytropon 
On Sun, 6 Jun 2010 22:06:07 -0600, Chad Perrin per...@apotheon.com wrote:
 On Sun, Jun 06, 2010 at 10:06:28AM -1000, p...@pair.com wrote:
  
  I cannot say about the tcsh features.
 
 That's kind of a shame, since tcsh is what I prefer these days, having
 long since given up on bash (pretty much immediately after I started
 using FreeBSD as my primary OS instead of bash, and realized I preferred
 the csh-style syntax).

I may use this chance to add that I'm also a fan of FreeBSD's csh
especially from the standpoint of dialog behaviour. For example,
autocompletition is - in my opinion - much better than in bash
(which does force too much interaction).

Example:

$ ls /usr/local/bin/m[tab]
BEEP!
*** [tab]
Display all 146 possibilities? (y or n)
*** y
mDNSClientPosix*moc-qt4*
mDNSIdentify*   modutil*
--More--(1%)
*** q
$ ls /usr/local/bin/m

The *** marks all unneccessary interaction that interrupts
work flow.

Also, csh's history behaviour is better - again in my opinion.
For example, if you enter bl and press the up / down arrow keys,
you can browse all commands that started with bl, e. g. bla, 
bli, blubb, blonk and so on. In bash, you would browse
through *all* commands using the same approach.

I am aware of the fact that most shell behaviour can be configured
or reprogrammed, but I'm just talking about the default settings.



 I've never really tried using vi-mode editing in any shell, despite the
 fact I'm a constant vi user (even a vi gangsta, one might say).  Maybe I
 should some day.  Thus far, though, I don't even know if tcsh supports
 vi-mode editing.

According to man csh, it is possible:

   The command-line editor (+)
   Command-line  input  can  be edited using key sequences much like those
   used in GNU Emacs or vi(1).  The editor is active only  when  the  edit
   shell  variable  is  set, which it is by default in interactive shells.
   The bindkey builtin can display and change key  bindings.   Emacs-style
   key  bindings are used by default (unless the shell was compiled other-
   wise; see the version shell variable), but bindkey can change  the  key
   bindings to vi-style bindings en masse.




-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...
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Re: which is the basic differences between the shells?

2010-06-07 Thread Chad Perrin 
On Mon, Jun 07, 2010 at 08:26:04PM +0200, Polytropon wrote:
 On Sun, 6 Jun 2010 22:06:07 -0600, Chad Perrin per...@apotheon.com wrote:
 
  I've never really tried using vi-mode editing in any shell, despite the
  fact I'm a constant vi user (even a vi gangsta, one might say).  Maybe I
  should some day.  Thus far, though, I don't even know if tcsh supports
  vi-mode editing.
 
 According to man csh, it is possible:
 
The command-line editor (+)
Command-line  input  can  be edited using key sequences much like those
used in GNU Emacs or vi(1).  The editor is active only  when  the  edit
shell  variable  is  set, which it is by default in interactive shells.
The bindkey builtin can display and change key  bindings.   Emacs-style
key  bindings are used by default (unless the shell was compiled other-
wise; see the version shell variable), but bindkey can change  the  key
bindings to vi-style bindings en masse.

Excellent!  I don't have to wait until I get off my tuckus to look it up
now.  Thank for feeding my laziness.

-- 
Chad Perrin [ original content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ]


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Re: which is the basic differences between the shells?

2010-06-07 Thread Chad Perrin 
On Mon, Jun 07, 2010 at 09:31:05AM -0700, Chip Camden wrote:
 
 I'd also like to publicly thank you on this list for encouraging me to
 try FreeBSD.  I absolutely love it.

I consider it a service to mankind to encourage more people using better,
and better-licensed, software.  You're welcome, and I'm pleased as punch
it's working out so well for you.

-- 
Chad Perrin [ original content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ]


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Re: which is the basic differences between the shells?

2010-06-06 Thread Giorgos Keramidas 
On Sat, 5 Jun 2010 22:35:09 +, Giorgos Tsiapaliokas terie...@gmail.com 
wrote:
 hello,
 i am coming from the linux world where i was using the bash shell but
 i found out that there are also much more.

 can u tell me the basic differences between them?(pros and cons)

It isn't humanly possible to write *all* the differences of *all* the
shells in a single email reply.  But you can find a good table that
compares various shells in Wikipedia:

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_command_shells

In a FreeBSD context there are also a few more things to consider when
comparing shells:

  * Is the shell part of the base system or a port/package?

  * Is the shell well maintained?

  * Does the shell depend on many other ports or none at all?

  * Does the shell support building static-only copies?  This is useful
if you want to upgrade the base system without breaking the login
shell you are using every day.

Having said that, here are a few personal notes from my own experience
with shells on FreeBSD...

The /bin/sh and /bin/csh shells are part of the base system, so they are
rebuilt as part of the normal buildworld process.  The big advantage of
using a shell that is part of the base system is that it's always
there.  Any shell scripts or code you write that uses these shells will
have a great chance of running on ANY FreeBSD system out there.  That's
where traditionalism stops and personal preference jumps in though...

I don't like using csh(1) for a lot of things.  It syntax makes me
cringe, even though it's a mostly ok interactive shell.  So I always
install at least bash and mksh on my systems.

There is no bash shell in the *base* system of FreeBSD.  But there are
many ports for command shells, and bash is part of these:

# cd /usr/ports/shells
44bsd-csh   dashjailkit pdksh   tcshrc
Makefilees  ksh93   pear-PHP_Shell  v7sh
bashesh lshell  psh viewglob
bash-completion fd  mkshrc  vshnu
bash-static fishnologinmsg  rsshwapsh
bash3   flash   osh sashzoidberg
bash3-staticgscommander p5-Shell-Perl   scponly zsh
bashc   heirloom-sh p5-Term-ShellUI shell-include
ch  ibshpashtcsh_nls
#

You can always install bash with pkg_add.  The default package is not
built as a static binary, but you can compile a static bash binary from
its port:

# cd /usr/ports/shells/bash
# make WITH_STATIC_BASH=1 install clean

The bash shell depends on two other ports: gettext and libiconv.  These
are not large ports, but it is often a good idea to have a shell around
that only depends on libc.

This is why I also install 'shells/mksh' on my systems.  It's the ksh
compatible shell of the MirOS BSD folks.  It has a small foot-print, a
ksh-compatible syntax, and it depends only on libc.so:

keram...@kobe:/home/keramida$ ldd `which mksh`
/usr/local/bin/mksh:
libc.so.7 = /lib/libc.so.7 (0x280c9000)

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Re: which is the basic differences between the shells?

2010-06-06 Thread Jerry 
On Sun, 06 Jun 2010 14:19:08 +0300
Giorgos Keramidas keram...@ceid.upatras.gr articulated:


 You can always install bash with pkg_add.  The default package is
 not built as a static binary, but you can compile a static bash
 binary from its port:
 
 # cd /usr/ports/shells/bash
 # make WITH_STATIC_BASH=1 install clean

I thought that was what this port was for:

Port:   bash-static-4.1.5_2
Path:   /usr/ports/shells/bash-static
Info:   The GNU Project's Bourne Again SHell


-- 
Jerry
freebsd.u...@seibercom.net

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Re: which is the basic differences between the shells?

2010-06-06 Thread Chad Perrin 
On Sat, Jun 05, 2010 at 04:17:15PM -0700, Chip Camden wrote:
 
 I like zsh, because it's sh-compatible, brings in a lot of the good ideas
 from csh/tcsh, and the license appears to be copyfree rather than copyleft.

Do you use that as your interactive shell, for scripting, or both?


 
 man zsh to see that there are so many features they had to break up the
 man pages.

That's kind of scary.

-- 
Chad Perrin [ original content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ]


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Re: which is the basic differences between the shells?

2010-06-06 Thread Chip Camden 
On Jun 06 2010 10:31, Chad Perrin wrote:
 On Sat, Jun 05, 2010 at 04:17:15PM -0700, Chip Camden wrote:
  
  I like zsh, because it's sh-compatible, brings in a lot of the good ideas
  from csh/tcsh, and the license appears to be copyfree rather than copyleft.
 
 Do you use that as your interactive shell, for scripting, or both?
 

Interactive only.  For scripting, I stick to sh unless it gets too complex --
then I jump to Ruby.
 
  
  man zsh to see that there are so many features they had to break up the
  man pages.
 
 That's kind of scary.

True, and it shows in its initial virtual size:

sterling   62630  0.0  0.0  8264  1804   0  I10:42AM   0:00.00 sh
sterling   62733  0.0  0.1 10284  2932   0  I10:42AM   0:00.01 csh
sterling   62791  0.0  0.1 10284  2848   0  I10:43AM   0:00.01 tcsh
sterling   70731  0.0  0.1 14580  4324   0  I10:46AM   0:00.05 zsh
sterling   71773  0.0  0.1 10220  2908   0  I+   10:46AM   0:00.01 bash

But on a laptop with 4GB, I don't miss it.

-- 
Sterling (Chip) Camden | camdensoftware.com | chipstips.com | chipsquips.com
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Re: which is the basic differences between the shells?

2010-06-06 Thread Chad Perrin 
On Sun, Jun 06, 2010 at 10:50:43AM -0700, Chip Camden wrote:
 On Jun 06 2010 10:31, Chad Perrin wrote:
  On Sat, Jun 05, 2010 at 04:17:15PM -0700, Chip Camden wrote:
   
   I like zsh, because it's sh-compatible, brings in a lot of the good ideas
   from csh/tcsh, and the license appears to be copyfree rather than 
   copyleft.
  
  Do you use that as your interactive shell, for scripting, or both?
 
 Interactive only.  For scripting, I stick to sh unless it gets too complex --
 then I jump to Ruby.

I'm curious about why you prefer zsh for an interactive shell.  What zsh
features would you miss if you used tcsh instead (what I've been using)?

I'm always willing to be convinced to try something better.

-- 
Chad Perrin [ original content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ]


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Re: which is the basic differences between the shells?

2010-06-06 Thread Chip Camden 
On Jun 06 2010 12:21, Chad Perrin wrote:
 On Sun, Jun 06, 2010 at 10:50:43AM -0700, Chip Camden wrote:
  On Jun 06 2010 10:31, Chad Perrin wrote:
   On Sat, Jun 05, 2010 at 04:17:15PM -0700, Chip Camden wrote:

I like zsh, because it's sh-compatible, brings in a lot of the good 
ideas
from csh/tcsh, and the license appears to be copyfree rather than 
copyleft.
   
   Do you use that as your interactive shell, for scripting, or both?
  
  Interactive only.  For scripting, I stick to sh unless it gets too complex 
  --
  then I jump to Ruby.
 
 I'm curious about why you prefer zsh for an interactive shell.  What zsh
 features would you miss if you used tcsh instead (what I've been using)?
 
 I'm always willing to be convinced to try something better.
 
I was a tcsh user before switching to zsh.  But I was raised on the
Bourne Shell, and used Korn shell a lot in the 90s.  The C-shell versions
of control flow commands always tripped me up, even though they're
arguably more sane -- just because the sh versions flow off the
fingertips.  So sh-compatibility was my main reason, but I like the
features of csh that zsh cherry-picked.
-- 
Sterling (Chip) Camden | camdensoftware.com | chipstips.com | chipsquips.com
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Re: which is the basic differences between the shells?

2010-06-06 Thread parv 
in message 20100606182148.gb28...@guilt.hydra,
wrote Chad Perrin thusly...
...
   On Sat, Jun 05, 2010 at 04:17:15PM -0700, Chip Camden wrote:
   
I like zsh, because it's sh-compatible, brings in a lot of
the good ideas from csh/tcsh, and the license appears to be
copyfree rather than copyleft.
...
 I'm curious about why you prefer zsh for an interactive shell.
 What zsh features would you miss if you used tcsh instead (what
 I've been using)?

 I'm always willing to be convinced to try something better.

I cannot say about the tcsh features.

I switched from bash to zsh mainly for excellent vi-mode editing
support, more so over multiple lines.  ksh  bash were horrible in
that respect.

Recently I have found that regular expression like [a-d] (instead of
{a,b,c,d}) in file name generation work as expected.  zsh has more
ways to help file name generation which I have not looked into yet.

And of course, as stated earlier, compatibility between a bourne
shell script  an interactive shell helps immensely while
developing|debugging a script.


  - parv

-- 

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Re: which is the basic differences between the shells?

2010-06-06 Thread Chad Perrin 
On Sun, Jun 06, 2010 at 11:32:58AM -0700, Chip Camden wrote:
  
 I was a tcsh user before switching to zsh.  But I was raised on the
 Bourne Shell, and used Korn shell a lot in the 90s.  The C-shell versions
 of control flow commands always tripped me up, even though they're
 arguably more sane -- just because the sh versions flow off the
 fingertips.  So sh-compatibility was my main reason, but I like the
 features of csh that zsh cherry-picked.

Given my preference for (t)csh syntax over sh syntax for an interactive
shell, I guess that doesn't give me a whole lot of motivation to try it
out.  Another response to my question discusses some other benefits,
though. . . .

Thanks for your perspective.

-- 
Chad Perrin [ original content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ]


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Re: which is the basic differences between the shells?

2010-06-06 Thread Chad Perrin 
On Sun, Jun 06, 2010 at 10:06:28AM -1000, p...@pair.com wrote:
 
 I cannot say about the tcsh features.

That's kind of a shame, since tcsh is what I prefer these days, having
long since given up on bash (pretty much immediately after I started
using FreeBSD as my primary OS instead of bash, and realized I preferred
the csh-style syntax).


 
 I switched from bash to zsh mainly for excellent vi-mode editing
 support, more so over multiple lines.  ksh  bash were horrible in
 that respect.

I've never really tried using vi-mode editing in any shell, despite the
fact I'm a constant vi user (even a vi gangsta, one might say).  Maybe I
should some day.  Thus far, though, I don't even know if tcsh supports
vi-mode editing.


 
 Recently I have found that regular expression like [a-d] (instead of
 {a,b,c,d}) in file name generation work as expected.  zsh has more
 ways to help file name generation which I have not looked into yet.
 
 And of course, as stated earlier, compatibility between a bourne
 shell script  an interactive shell helps immensely while
 developing|debugging a script.

This is another area where I just haven't run into the need for that sort
of thing.  When I use a regex at the command prompt, it's via grep,
basically -- I don't tend to get more fancy than something like globbing.
For scripting, I stick to sh and real programming languages like Perl
and Ruby.  I'm not terribly clear on tcsh's regex support, and I guess if
I needed shell compatibility when writing a shell script (which, for me,
is usually just a batch file, perhaps with a little flow control and a
variable or two) I can always just start sh.

-- 
Chad Perrin [ original content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ]


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Re: which is the basic differences between the shells?

2010-06-05 Thread Chip Camden 
On Jun 05 2010 22:35, Giorgos Tsiapaliokas wrote:
 hello,
 i am coming from the linux world where i was using the bash shell but i
 found out that there are also much more.
 can u tell me the basic differences between them?(pros and cons)
 
 thanks in advance
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I like zsh, because it's sh-compatible, brings in a lot of the good ideas
from csh/tcsh, and the license appears to be copyfree rather than copyleft.

man zsh to see that there are so many features they had to break up the
man pages.

-- 
Sterling (Chip) Camden | camdensoftware.com | chipstips.com | chipsquips.com
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Re: which is the basic differences between the shells?

2010-06-05 Thread Alejandro Imass 
On Sat, Jun 5, 2010 at 6:35 PM, Giorgos Tsiapaliokas terie...@gmail.com wrote:
 hello,
 i am coming from the linux world where i was using the bash shell but i
 found out that there are also much more.
 can u tell me the basic differences between them?(pros and cons)


Too broad a topic I suspect fo u to get an answer here. In FBSD the
base system is completely separate from the applications, that is
really great because for example your system upgrades are
independendent of applications / ports. The base shell is in the base
system so don't replace the shell for the root user but rather start
bash from your root account if you wish. This will make sense when
your system breaks in an upgrade for example.

For everything else you can safely use bash and choose bash for your
normal users. I use bash all the time even for root, but in the latter
case I start it manually.

Best,
Alejandro Imass


 thanks in advance
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Re: which is the basic differences between the shells?

2010-06-05 Thread Charlie Kester 

On Sat 05 Jun 2010 at 16:24:36 PDT Alejandro Imass wrote:

On Sat, Jun 5, 2010 at 6:35 PM, Giorgos Tsiapaliokas terie...@gmail.com wrote:

hello,
i am coming from the linux world where i was using the bash shell but i
found out that there are also much more.
can u tell me the basic differences between them?(pros and cons)



Too broad a topic I suspect fo u to get an answer here. In FBSD the
base system is completely separate from the applications, that is
really great because for example your system upgrades are
independendent of applications / ports. The base shell is in the base
system so don't replace the shell for the root user but rather start
bash from your root account if you wish. This will make sense when
your system breaks in an upgrade for example.

For everything else you can safely use bash and choose bash for your
normal users. I use bash all the time even for root, but in the latter
case I start it manually.


Definitely too broad a topic for a mailing list.

Probably the best way to approach it is to look first at the Bourne
shelli (sh), which probably has the smallest and simplest set of
features.

The C shell (csh) is, as the name suggests, more like the C programming
language.  It was developed at UC Berkeley, and thus has always had a
close association with BSD. One of the major innovations introduced by
the C shell is *history*.  

tcsh is an enhanced but completely compatible version of csh.  


The Korn shell (ksh) combined many features from the C shell with the
functionality of the Bourne shell.  Among the many new features
introduced by the Korn shell are pattern-based variable substitution,
e.g.  ${varname%%pattern}.

Bash picks up where the Korn shell leaves off, and adds even more
features.

More features usually means increased size and sometimes slower
execution.  In fact, if you look at the manpage for bash, the first
sentence in the last section (BUGS) is a frank admission that It's
too big and too slow.

It's also too GPL-encumbered for many BSD folk.  You can get many of the
same features in a lighterweight package, with a friendlier license, by
going with one of the Korn shells instead. I've been using shells/mksh
from ports after having it recommended to me in the forums, and I've
been very satisfied with it.




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