I am Bourne Again!

[Mikey-San]

I'll let my 10.2 Terminal window speak for me:

[thermodynamics:~] mikey% bash
bash-2.05a$ Yay!
bash: Yay!: command not found
bash-2.05a$ exit
[thermodynamics:~] mikey%

:-D

Bash is included with 10.2! Rejoice.


-/-
Mikey-San

[osxpez]

Quote: Originally posted by Mikey-San Bash is included with 10.2! Rejoice.

Ahhh, so that's why nobody listens to me when I say use bash instead of tcsh! I have forgotten about installing bash and assumed it came with OS X. Great news that it's bundled with 10.2! Pity though that Apple didn't make it default. Now tcsh will continue to lure newbies into scripting with it.

[stetner]

Anyone know if ksh is there in 10.2 ?

[mervTormel]

yes. ksh is not there in 10.2

[hombre]

So, is sh still zsh or is it bash now?

[mervTormel]

sh is bash now

[dm2243]

% whereis python
/usr/bin/python

(of course, not everyone will jump for joy as a result...hello, pmccann)

[below]

Could someone please explain in a nutshell (pun intended), what makes bash better than tcsh.
Yes, I too was lured to tcsh, and I like things like the dictionary, auto completion, history and such.

So, what's the deal?

Alex

[mervTormel]

http://www.faqs.org/faqs/unix-faq/shell/csh-whynot/

[osxpez]

The thing is that since tcsh is such a Crappy Scripting Tool (tm) (see merv's post above) most of latest years shell development has gone into sh and ksh derivates like bash and zsh and what have you. Bash was early on bundled and default shell for most Linux dists so there's lots and lots of bash knowledge out there.

Besides bash is a blend between the tcsh's excellent interactive features and the ksh's excellent scripting model. So you won't miss out on anything when you switch to bash.

[pmccann]

Quote: Originally posted by dm2243 % whereis python /usr/bin/python (of course, not everyone will jump for joy as a result...hello, pmccann)

Cool: thanks for the heads up. While I don't use python much (indeed, barely at all...), and always enjoy a little good-natured ribbing with its prophets, it's good to know that python is standard in 10.2. There are some *great* applications written using python (mailman jumps instantly to mind).

Let those who ride decide! (Some people enjoy auto-erotic asphyxiation; me, I haven't really travelled that particular route, and tend to let it all "hang loose". This is all about scripting languages, right?)

Cheers,
Paul

[osxpez]

Quote: Originally posted by pmccann There are some *great* applications written using python (mailman jumps instantly to mind).

And let's not forget that Python gets a lot attention these days and that many "serious" developers are deep into Python. We need some of those in the OS X camp. =)

[mervTormel]

Quote: Originally posted by below Could someone please explain in a nutshell (pun intended), what makes bash better than tcsh...

one word: functions!

bash aliases don't handle arguments like tcsh aliases. but, tcsh doesn't have functions (AFAIK)! bash functions handle args, and a whole lot more.

bash functions are really swell. they're like aliases, but they're mini-scripts with all the structure of true sh scripts (AFAIK). they can be quite powerful. they reside in your shell variable space, so there's a little memory penalty. but speed is the trade-off.

they execute in your current shell context; no new process is created to run the function, as opposed to shell scripts. there is also local variable declaration. and they're recursive.

zfp     () {    # find process(es)

# handle multiple args by
# translating spaces to the egrep metachar |

  local ss ; ss=`echo "$@" | tr " " "|"` ;

# sort by real mem size, be 
# reasonable and display the ps header

  ps wwaxum | egrep -i "${ss}| PID %CPU " | grep -v 'egrep -i' ; 
} 

# can't do that in tcsh - ha ha

# example:

$ zfp cron inetd slpd bash
USER   PID %CPU %MEM      VSZ    RSS  TT  STAT      TIME COMMAND
merv  1002   0.0  0.1     2204   1204  p1  Ss     0:01.34 bash --login
merv  1092   3.0  0.1     2204   1164 std  Ss     0:01.22 -bash (bash)
root   362   0.0  0.0     5108    520  ??  Ss     0:07.58 slpd -f /etc/slpsa.conf
root   351   0.0  0.0     1560    132  ??  Ss     0:00.21 cron
root   299   0.0  0.0     1288    116  ??  Ss     0:00.01 inetd

Tuck function zfp into your bash startup.

[pmccann]

Come on mT. With such a lovely template to work from it was a pleasure to render your claim ("# can't do that in tcsh - ha ha") false!

Try chucking the following single line into your .cshrc.

alias zfp 'set ss=`echo "\!*" | tr " " "|"`;ps wwaxum|egrep -i "${ss}| PID %CPU
"|grep -v "egrep -i"'

Shell scripting in csh/tcsh may be a bit *nasty*, but aliases are still pretty useful. Indeed, as an interactive shell I think tcsh is really nice.

Cheers,
Paul

ps While it *looks* like I'm an apologist for tcsh, I am in the process of changing allegiances to the "ta da" (drum roll please) Z-shell. Looks like lots of fun. (So does bash, but it's already got enough friends!)

[osxpez]

Quote: Originally posted by mervTormel one word: functions!

Functions is a major thing. But there's more. There's actually a few things that the tcsh does that bash doesn't (like spell checking and tty sanity checking). Maybe spell checking can be added by user defined functions, but it's not built in and thus not widely available. But hey! You can always use zsh. zsh is very ksh (or POSIX sh) compatible and has all interactive bells and whistles you could ask for. But I stick to bash, because that's the main stream and for once I have decided to go with the flow.

Check the comp.unix.shell "What shell?" FAQ

It has a brief history of shells and a feature comparison table.