ProfitPress Mega CDROM2 …eeware (MSDOS)(1992)(Eng)/ProfitPress-MegaCDROM2.B6I/MISC/GNU/SH164AS.ZIP/NOTES1.6

Text File | 1992-02-28 | 5.3 KB | 119 lines

Version 1.6.4 Release Notes:

Note: Release 1.6.1 did occur to comp.ibm.pc.binaries.  However, the
transmission was corrupt and by the time I was notified (the moderator having
been in hospital), release 1.6.2 was ready.  So the source patches for
1.6.1 where not released.

The following problems have been fixed in 1.6.2 (including 1.6).

   1.   Traps did now work correctly (as far as possible for DOS) la System
    V.3
   2.   File descriptor duplication closed standard input.
   3.   !! has been implemented to return the previous command in the history
    file
   4.   erase_to_end_of_line has been improved/fixed
   5.   The processing of . filename has been fixed so that the script is
    now executed immediately.  This is the area most likely to contain
    bugs.
   6.   History does not double prompt
   7.    Bugs in the 'here' document code delete backslashes and prevented
    `command` in a here document from working.
   8.   Interrupting a pipeline could result in std??? remaining redirected
   9.   exec >filename did not work
  10.   Some temporary files were not deleted.
  11.   The swapper failed to check for disk full errors
  12.   The full path name is provided to the DOS spawn interrupt so that
    the PICNIX utilities now work.
  13.   Certain areas of code are now protected against interruption which
    would cause hanging.
  14.    The original directory is restored on exit.
  15.    A couple of missing setarea having been added to stop hangs
  16.    The input buffer is correctly initialised and nulls are added so
    that the correct command is saved when an interrupt occurs.
  17.    An error in the reloading of buffers from files has been fixed.
  18.    The directory routines have been modified to correctly handle
    all valid Unix format directory names (ie a Unix directory name
    can end in /.  However, DOS does not think this is a directory).
  19.    A bug in director.c which caused the shell to crash or hang has
    been fixed.
  20.    The DOS 4 command processor does not like the use of switchar.
    The code has been fixed to cope with DOS 4.
  21.    A bug in the processing of functions has been fixed which caused
    the shell to crash or hang has been fixed.
  22.    A bug in the function code that caused case functions to hang
    has been fixed.
The following enhancements have been made:

   1.   /dev/tty and /dev/null are mapped to /dev/con and /dev/nul internally
   2.   <up arrow> returns the previous history command
   3.   <page up> will now search for the previous history entry matching
    the entered string
   4.   The shell determines the number of columns on the screen from the
    BIOS
   5.   Shell scripts are detected in a new manner.  For a file to be a
    shell script, it must contain no characters with values in the
    range 0 to 7 in the first 512 bytes.
   6.   #! <command> <arguments> processing on the first line of script files
    has been implemented a la System V.4
   7.   XMS drivers are now supported
   8.   Some static buffers are now 'malloced' instead and some length
    checks have been added
   9.   Insert command selects a full or halfheight block cursor
   10.  .bat files are processed by the shell specified by the variable
    COMSPEC.
   11.  UNIX format PATH variables are converted MSDOS format
   12.  The shell attempts to find the number of lines on the screen from
    the BIOS
   13.  File name completion has been implemented
   14.  Erase input buffer has been implemented
   15.  A Configuration file (sh.ini) allows the user to configure the
    editor keys
   16.  Quoting of arugments with white space in them to MSDOS commands
    has been added.
   17.  Full internal Interrup 24 support is provided.
   18.  The amount of data written to swap file by only dumping the
    data and stack space after the first write.
   19.    The ms_dio function have been enhanced to support raw and block
    devices (well not really - just the stat and fstat functions).
   20.  The POSIX variable substitution command ${#name} to give the
    string length has been implemented.
   21.  The POSIX I/O option <> has been implemented.
   22.  The POSIX I/O options ${#*%} and ~ have been implemented.
   23.  The builtin command command has been implemented.
   24.  The source for stdargv.c has been modified to work under OS/2

The following enhancements/bugs remain outstanding:

    1.  The processing of the escape character (\) is not consistent with
    the System V shell.  The MS-Shell always strips the first escape
    character.  The System V shell only strips escape characters when
    it detects a shell special character following (Release 1.7).

    ie.  echo "\033[H" works under System V however echo "\\033[H" is
    required in the MSDOS shell.

    2.  8 Bit character are not supported.  This is tied in with the
    processing of escape characters.  The shell uses the 8-bit to
    mark escaped characters (Release 1.7).

    3.  Interrupting a disk swap at the wrong time may cause the shell to
    hang.  I've tried disabling Control-Break during disk read/writes
    but this only causes the shell to hang on re-load every time in
    some environments.  In the next release, I'm going to put in some
    checks and issue re-read/writes when necessary.

Thanks are due to

    Greg Yachuk
    Leo Vermeulen
    Lee Fisher
    John B Thiel
    Harry McGavran
    Bill Davidsen
    Richard J Reiner

for their comments, fixes, tolerance etc in testing release 1.6

Ian Stewartson.