H-NET H-NET H-NET H-NET H-NET H-NET H-NET H N N E ** H-Net Magazine ** E T T H Volume One, Issue 1, File #16 of 20 H N N E UNIX-HELP conf on UNAXCESS BBS, JANET E T T H-NET H-NET H-NET H-NET H-NET H-NET H-NET H DETAILS : Unaxcess BBS - JANET address - 0000121100 UNAXCESS is a bbs that is run by Bradford University on the JANET (Joint Academic) NETwork. Although it is very strictly run and you need to be a student to gain access I did not find it much of a problem. They also have a strict policy of no hacking chat - but with UNIX and VAX help conferences I was still interested in it!! hehehe. Another interesting feature of the BBS is it's chat mode 'T' from the main menu - about 8 lines I think. Plenty of people seem to be slagging off JANET as boring these days - they are usually the people who havent bothered to have a good look around - I mean the La Palma Observatory hack was quite funny!! hehee Message 277 (of 292, 28 more unread) in UNIX-HELP: Date: Saturday, 7 April, 1990 - 5:27 PM From: JOB To: ANDIE Subject: WhiteChapel Mg1 In-Reply-To: 263, 210 a maintenance floppy? Is that a special utils disk then? hmm.. we don't have that. Do you know anyone with an MG1? cheers, Jason. -- Replied-to-by: ANDIE 19:55 [UNIX-HELP] Reading (? for help) N Message 285 (of 292, 27 more unread) in UNIX-HELP: Date: Monday, 9 April, 1990 - 1:33 PM From: ANDIE To: JOB Subject: WhiteChapel Mg1 In-Reply-To: 277, 263, 210 Yes. To make a new one, you need to "cd /usr/wcw; ./mkmflp" but seeing as your usr partition is broken, this isn't much help. I'm in the process of acquiring some Whitechapel spares...One of the broken beasts is a MG-1. If I can generate a maintenace floppy from one, I'll let you know. --Andie. 19:44 [UNIX-HELP] Reading (? for help) N Message 264 (of 292, 26 more unread) in UNIX-HELP: Date: Thursday, 29 March, 1990 - 10:39 PM From: FRED To: DYLAN Subject: cd... In-Reply-To: 261, 260, 259, 257, 256, 252 Or you could get a C proggy to call a shell script, but that would be slower, possibly more interesting? Fred. -- Replied-to-by: DYLAN 19:35 [UNIX-HELP] Reading (? for help) N Message 265 (of 292, 25 more unread) in UNIX-HELP: Date: Friday, 30 March, 1990 - 3:49 AM From: DYLAN To: FRED Subject: cd... In-Reply-To: 264, 261, 260, 259, 257, 256, 252 But that wouldn't work. Dylan. 19:31 [UNIX-HELP] Reading (? for help) N Message 266 (of 292, 24 more unread) in UNIX-HELP: Date: Friday, 30 March, 1990 - 10:21 AM From: DISCO MAN Subject: changing directory in a c program The whole idea of changing the directory in a c program is so that I can write for example chdir("/user/compsci/cs_bsc/evansmp/application"); ... output = fopen("outfile"); input = fopen("infile"); rename ("infile","infile%"); without having to put the complete path name in every file reference, and ensuring that the program will do what it should do whatever the pwd of its parent process is. Prehaps more useful is #define APPLICATION_DIR "/usr/compsci/cs_bsc/evansmp/application" ... chdir(APPLICATION_DIR); --More [YD]--             19:20 [UNIX-HELP] Reading (? for help) N Message 267 (of 292, 23 more unread) in UNIX-HELP: Date: Wednesday, 4 April, 1990 - 9:13 PM From: PC PLOD Subject: re: cd.. cd.. cd.. cd.. cd.. cd.. cd.. cd.. .... Have we all flogged 'cd' to death now PLEASE?? -- Replied-to-by: DYLAN 19:15 [UNIX-HELP] Reading (? for help) N Message 268 (of 292, 22 more unread) in UNIX-HELP: Date: Thursday, 5 April, 1990 - 12:20 AM From: DYLAN To: PC PLOD Subject: re: cd.. cd.. cd.. cd.. cd.. cd.. cd.. cd.. .... In-Reply-To: 267 Well actually, we could go on at great length if you really wanted us to.... Dylan. 19:09 [UNIX-HELP] Reading (? for help) N Message 269 (of 292, 21 more unread) in UNIX-HELP: Date: Thursday, 5 April, 1990 - 6:17 AM From: DYLAN Subject: lisp I need a lisp interpreter which will compile + run on System V, specifically a Xenix machine? Anyone got one. Dylan. -- Replied-to-by: LORRY 19:03 [UNIX-HELP] Reading (? for help) N Message 270 (of 292, 20 more unread) in UNIX-HELP: Date: Thursday, 5 April, 1990 - 12:24 PM From: LORRY To: DYLAN Subject: lisp In-Reply-To: 269 Think there's one on Tardis but anyway, jpd could be the man to ask. -- Replied-to-by: DYLAN 18:57 [UNIX-HELP] Reading (? for help) N Message 276 (of 292, 19 more unread) in UNIX-HELP: Date: Thursday, 5 April, 1990 - 7:26 PM From: DYLAN To: LORRY Subject: lisp In-Reply-To: 270, 269 I already have, and am waiting in anticiaption of his answer sweetnes. Dylan. 18:55 [UNIX-HELP] Reading (? for help) N Message 271 (of 292, 18 more unread) in UNIX-HELP: Date: Thursday, 5 April, 1990 - 5:55 PM From: CHRIS2 Subject: File creation As a non Unix expert can anyone help me with this one? I want to put something into .profile so that when I sign on a test will be carried out to see if a certain file exists. If it doesn't then I want to 6create a new directory in /tmp/mysignon -- Replied-to-by: CYBERMAN -- Replied-to-by: BLADERUNNER 18:50 [UNIX-HELP] Reading (? for help) N Message 272 (of 292, 17 more unread) in UNIX-HELP: Date: Thursday, 5 April, 1990 - 6:02 PM From: CHRIS2 Subject: File creation please e-mail your repiles regarding my previous fiule creation question to C.Dennison@uk.ac.newcastle Many thanks Chris2 18:48 [UNIX-HELP] Reading (? for help) N Message 273 (of 292, 16 more unread) in UNIX-HELP: Date: Thursday, 5 April, 1990 - 6:15 PM From: CYBERMAN To: CHRIS2 Subject: File creation In-Reply-To: 271 Try this if [ -f file ] then mkdir /tmp/mysignon/whatever fi Or, if the file has to both exist and be non-zero in length use if [ -s file ] Square brackets execute the command test, I think the above is more readable, but you can also write these as below (see test manual page) --More (85%) [YNDQ]--                     if test -f file then .... Hope this helps, --- Malcolm 18:44 [UNIX-HELP] Reading (? for help) N Message 274 (of 292, 15 more unread) in UNIX-HELP: Date: Thursday, 5 April, 1990 - 6:48 PM From: BLADERUNNER To: CHRIS2 Subject: File creation In-Reply-To: 271 Ummm..how about something like this: if test -s FILEYOUWANTTESTED then mkdir /tmp/mysigno fi >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>BLADERUNNER>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> -- Replied-to-by: BLADERUNNER 18:29 [UNIX-HELP] Reading (? for help) N Message 275 (of 292, 14 more unread) in UNIX-HELP: Date: Thursday, 5 April, 1990 - 6:51 PM From: BLADERUNNER To: BLADERUNNER Subject: File creation In-Reply-To: 274, 271 Whoops! Looks like Cyberman's already answered it!! :-) 18:25 [UNIX-HELP] Reading (? for help) N Message 278 (of 292, 13 more unread) in UNIX-HELP: Date: Saturday, 7 April, 1990 - 6:54 PM From: TANIA To: OLORIN Subject: background login In-Reply-To: 233, 228, 223 hmm.. I think you're kinda getting mixed up over the way subshells exist in unix if you're talking like that... there's no way in unix that a child process can set the enviromnet (or anything else) of its parent (see `man tset` for a quote like "if a process could set the environment of its parent, none of this nonsense would be necessary in the first place") whoever it was said about 'alias a alias' making all the lines using the alias 'a' go back to the start of the file -- uh, nono; the alias has been set up in the shell process, hash tables and all that jazz; it doesnt need to go back read the file in again. How could it re-read stdin, eh? there's various things that make .cshrc initialisation slow; I can't remember all the reasons I realised and cut down on in my .cshrc... evaluating ~ is very slow, but ~ on its own is fast. in tcsh, whenever you set path, it recreates its hash table (maybe in csh too) so don't do set path = ( /bin /usr/bin /usr/ucb /usr/local /gnu/bin ) set path = ( $path ~/bin/sun3 ~/bin/scripts /cs/share/bin ) set path = ( $path /more/funky/stuff /loadsa/paths/for/interesting/things ) ... do it all in one line, escaping newlines. also, if your path setup uses eg ../bin/`arch`/ or something several times, or indeed if you use any program more than once to get the same result, evaluate it once and put it in a variable. keep checking it and cutting out anything you dont really use; I for one often make up wierd and wonderful aliases to do complex tasks without needing any further thought (what's that?) and then never use them again. Put all the esoteric ones in a separate file and make an alias (gasp!) to --More (83%) [YNDQ]--                     source that file -- many logins are just short ones that don't need all that trash (check printer queue; mail someone/check mail; whatever) Er, kickoff time... see y'later. Don't worry, be happy. ~Tania ----# Aaarrrggghhh what am I doing here anyway I've got a project to finish!!! Fish! bye! -- Replied-to-by: CYBERMAN -- Replied-to-by: OLORIN 17:58 [UNIX-HELP] Reading (? for help) N Message 279 (of 292, 12 more unread) in UNIX-HELP: Date: Saturday, 7 April, 1990 - 8:30 PM From: CYBERMAN To: TANIA Subject: background login In-Reply-To: 278, 233, 228, 223 Ssh startup is LOADS faster than csh, because you can get it to declare aliases as extern, i.e. expanded when called the first time. Means you can have as many wierd aliases as you like. Doesnt help with csh though, does it.. Setting paths, i find it best to do it like thius.. set lpath = ( ~/bin /usr/local/bin ~/bin/X11 ) set path = ( . $lpath /usr/bin /usr/ucb /bin /etc /usr/etc ) Except thatI usually put . at the end Also, if you replace less common aliases with scripts, startup is faster. --More (83%) [YNDQ]--                     The main problem with csh startup however, is its size... Its just too big. If you can get it, try ssh, or a ksh --- MAlcolm 17:48 [UNIX-HELP] Reading (? for help) N Message 280 (of 292, 11 more unread) in UNIX-HELP: Date: Sunday, 8 April, 1990 - 4:24 PM From: OLORIN To: TANIA Subject: background login In-Reply-To: 278, 233, 228, 223 What I meant was to simulate alias with shell scripts . It tends to be a lot more flexible than the brain-dead alias facilities of csh. Trouble is then theres the delay of spawning another shell :-( -- Replied-to-by: FIZZ -- Replied-to-by: CYBERMAN 17:43 [UNIX-HELP] Reading (? for help) N Message 281 (of 292, 10 more unread) in UNIX-HELP: Date: Sunday, 8 April, 1990 - 5:15 PM From: FIZZ To: OLORIN Subject: background login In-Reply-To: 280, 278, 233, 228, 223 > ...spawning another shell I thought Unixy peeps always forked other processes... hohum! :-) +F. -- Replied-to-by: OLORIN 17:40 [UNIX-HELP] Reading (? for help) N Message 282 (of 292, 9 more unread) in UNIX-HELP: Date: Sunday, 8 April, 1990 - 5:44 PM From: OLORIN To: FIZZ Subject: background login In-Reply-To: 281, 280, 278, 233, 228, 223 Well if you're getting picky :-) fork()/exec() 'ing another shell . Happy now ? -- Replied-to-by: FIZZ 17:37 [UNIX-HELP] Reading (? for help) N Message 283 (of 292, 8 more unread) in UNIX-HELP: Date: Sunday, 8 April, 1990 - 7:41 PM From: FIZZ To: OLORIN Subject: background login In-Reply-To: 282, 281, 280, 278, 233, 228, 223 Yep, ta! :-) Wouldn't like people to get the impression we used VMS now would we? :-> +F. 17:29 [UNIX-HELP] Reading (? for help) N Message 284 (of 292, 7 more unread) in UNIX-HELP: Date: Monday, 9 April, 1990 - 12:30 AM From: CYBERMAN To: OLORIN Subject: background login In-Reply-To: 280, 278, 233, 228, 223 If you make teh first line of your script #!\bin\csh -f (slashes should be forward ones, but that key isnt workking :-( ) It shouldd start csh without reading aliases etc, check the manual page for csh options. Better still, write your scripts in Bournne shell, as its smaller it'll start faster - and for scripts its generally regarded as a better shell. For Bourne shell startup use #!\bin\sh --More (89%) [YNDQ]--                      as the first linne (same problem with slashes) --- Malcolm 17:11 [UNIX-HELP] Reading (? for help) N Checkpointing... Message 286 (of 292, 6 more unread) in UNIX-HELP: Date: Monday, 9 April, 1990 - 8:03 PM From: ALIEN Subject: UNIX shells can anyone give me a rundown of the various shells available for UNIX and the (dis)/advantages of them? Alien -- Replied-to-by: KEI 17:01 [UNIX-HELP] Reading (? for help) N Message 287 (of 292, 5 more unread) in UNIX-HELP: Date: Monday, 9 April, 1990 - 10:15 PM From: KEI To: ALIEN Subject: UNIX shells In-Reply-To: 286 Okay, speaking as a dedicated VMS person, I'm probably the wrong person to answer this, but here goes!! One of the earliest shells was the Bourne shell (written by Bourne), which should be found in /bin (i.e. /bin/sh). This is the standard shell (well, sort of). It is small, fast and limited (no command recall, line editing or sttff like that). Next on the scene was the C shell (/bin/csh) this is meant to have a c-like syntax, making it easy for C programmers to write shell scripts. It has rudimentary line-editing, using commands like !! to recall the previous command !a to recal the last command st`rting with a and various more complicated stuff. A recent arrival (ish) is the korn shell (/bin/ksh) this is big but offers lots of facilities. There is line-editing using EMACS or vi keystrokes. Aliases are available in csh and ksh, these enable you to alias (for example) x to be cat, so when you type x the shell replaces it with cat which it then executes. That's an overview ... the logout approaches!! --More (83%) [YNDQ]--                     A couple of other shells I have heard of but not used are vsh (a visual shell)and a shell written by those nice people at the free software foundation (GNU) which I think is called bash. Ian -- Replied-to-by: PEBBLE 16:38 [UNIX-HELP] Reading (? for help) N Message 288 (of 292, 4 more unread) in UNIX-HELP: Date: Monday, 9 April, 1990 - 10:28 PM From: PEBBLE To: KEI Subject: UNIX shells In-Reply-To: 287, 286 There's also one I've heard of called `ash', which is intended to run with `atty' (an `alternative termininal driver', which does line-editing etc.). Bash (the FSF's Bourne Again Shell) is sort of a greatest upper bound (!) of /bin/sh and csh - it has a superset of sh syntax, line-editing a la emacs, and csh's job control and history substitution. I've also heard of tcsh, which is sort of a modified csh (as ksh is a modified Bourne shell). I think that's more than enough, don't you? :) -- Replied-to-by: PSYCHO 16:33 [UNIX-HELP] Reading (? for help) N Message 289 (of 292, 3 more unread) in UNIX-HELP: Date: Monday, 9 April, 1990 - 10:33 PM From: PSYCHO To: PEBBLE Subject: UNIX shells In-Reply-To: 288, 287, 286 It is enough after I mention ssh (available on tardis).... 8-) psycho.... -- Replied-to-by: FORD PREFECT 16:28 [UNIX-HELP] Reading (? for help) N Message 290 (of 292, 2 more unread) in UNIX-HELP: Date: Tuesday, 10 April, 1990 - 9:23 AM From: FORD PREFECT To: PSYCHO Subject: UNIX shells In-Reply-To: 289, 288, 287, 286 On the subject of ssh.. I just happen to have the Man page here in front of me! NAME ssh - a portable Unix shell SYNOPSIS ssh [ [-fP-]-bcefiklnrstuvxzBCDEFHIJKLMNPRSTUX ][ arg ...] DESCRIPTION Summary Ssh is a shell originally based on the Bourne shell sh with additions inspired from the C-shell csh and the Korn shell ksh. Ssh is intended to be totally compatible with sh and the settings of --More (71%) [YNDQ]--                      various flags permits use of the additional features. In particular, the -T flag acts as a toggle for switching between full sh-compatibility and full ssh. etc.... I hope this is of some use! Ford Prefect 16:18 [UNIX-HELP] Reading (? for help) N Message 291 (of 292, 1 more unread) in UNIX-HELP: Date: Thursday, 19 April, 1990 - 5:27 PM From: DISCO MAN Subject: problem with bash Does anyone know how to get bash, (GNU's Bourne Again Shell) to compile on a Sequent Symetry S27. I can get it to work fine on a sun sparcstation, but not on the sequent. 16:18 [UNIX-HELP] Reading (? for help) N Message 292 (of 292) in UNIX-HELP: Date: Friday, 20 April, 1990 - 7:43 PM From: DARKANGEL Subject: Inter Process Communication Firstly, many thanks to Olorin for the socket information, but ... while developing the socket-using program (and it's really getting hair-raising now!) how can you safely exit, e.g. on an external request (kill process!) dropping the socket you were using. Where I'm at the (Sequent Symmetry S29 I think - running DYNIX something or other - great effects can be had from simple calls to fork()!) system complains when my program keels over - I have to wait a while for the 'Socket already in use' messages to stop! DarkAngel! 16:17 [UNIX-HELP] Reading (? for help) X =============================================================================== [Hackernet BBS,LEEDS,UK(0532)557739, 24hrs. Home of H-Net Hacking magazine]