The version of tcsh in Solaris 10 is newer than that in 8 (8 is
6.10.00, 10 is 6.12.00), and, it turns out, subtly incompatible: setenv
in 6.10.00 allows hyphens in variable names, but in 6.12.00 it doesn't.
And lo, we have environment variable names with hyphens, buried in
some vast tangled mass of vendor code.

Tragically, clubbing the people who wrote these scripts to death is not
an option (they're in a different country and arranging extradition etc
would take ages).

Does anyone know if there is any compatibility thing I can set to make
it work the way it did in 8 (yes, I've looked, and I can't find one)?

Thanks

--tim

On Dec 18, 10:19 am, "Tim Bradshaw" <tfb+goo...@tfeb.org> wrote:
> The version of tcsh in Solaris 10 is newer than that in 8 (8 is
> 6.10.00, 10 is 6.12.00), and, it turns out, subtly incompatible: setenv
> in 6.10.00 allows hyphens in variable names, but in 6.12.00 it doesn't.
> And lo, we have environment variable names with hyphens, buried in
> some vast tangled mass of vendor code.
>
> Tragically, clubbing the people who wrote these scripts to death is not
> an option (they're in a different country and arranging extradition etc
> would take ages).
>
> Does anyone know if there is any compatibility thing I can set to make
> it work the way it did in 8 (yes, I've looked, and I can't find one)?
>
> Thanks
>
> --tim

That's definitely strange... I confirmed that hyphens work in 6.11.00
as well, but definitely not 6.12.00. I didn't see anything telling in
the tcsh manpage, so I would probably just compile and install an older
version. I notice that 6.14.00 is available, but I haven't tried it.
ftp://ftp.astron.com/pub/tcsh/

It's not like there's a bunch of files to replace. The SUNWtcsh
package contains nothing more than the tcsh binary, no libs or includes
to worry about.


(1)[1:43pm] # pkginfo -l SUNWtcsh
PKGINST: SUNWtcsh
NAME: Tenex C-shell (tcsh)
CATEGORY: system
ARCH: sparc
VERSION: 11.10.0,REV=2005.01.08.05.16
BASEDIR: /
VENDOR: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
DESC: Tenex C-shell (tcsh) 6.12
PSTAMP: sfw1020050108052314
INSTDATE: Oct 20 2006 16:13
HOTLINE: Please contact your local service provider
STATUS: completely installed
FILES: 3 installed pathnames
2 shared pathnames
2 directories
1 executables
710 blocks used (approx)

(2)[1:43pm] # pkgchk -l SUNWtcsh | grep Pathname:
Pathname: /usr
Pathname: /usr/bin
Pathname: /usr/bin/tcsh

On Dec 18, 10:19 am, "Tim Bradshaw" <tfb+goo...@tfeb.org> wrote:
> The version of tcsh in Solaris 10 is newer than that in 8 (8 is
> 6.10.00, 10 is 6.12.00), and, it turns out, subtly incompatible: setenv
> in 6.10.00 allows hyphens in variable names, but in 6.12.00 it doesn't.
> And lo, we have environment variable names with hyphens, buried in
> some vast tangled mass of vendor code.
>
> Tragically, clubbing the people who wrote these scripts to death is not
> an option (they're in a different country and arranging extradition etc
> would take ages).
>
> Does anyone know if there is any compatibility thing I can set to make
> it work the way it did in 8 (yes, I've looked, and I can't find one)?
>
> Thanks
>
> --tim



Actually, scratch that last. I just tried 6.14.00 and it worked fine.

(3)[6:56pm] > echo $version
tcsh 6.14.00 (Astron) 2005-03-25 (i386-sun-solaris) options
wide,nls,dl,al,kan,rh,color,filec
(4)[6:56pm] > setenv FOO-BAR "BAZ"
(5)[6:56pm] > printenv FOO-BAR
BAZ


So just upgrade and you should be all set.

--
Andy

"AHinMaine" <aharrison@gmail.com> writes:

>That's definitely strange... I confirmed that hyphens work in 6.11.00
>as well, but definitely not 6.12.00. I didn't see anything telling in
>the tcsh manpage, so I would probably just compile and install an older
>version. I notice that 6.14.00 is available, but I haven't tried it.
>ftp://ftp.astron.com/pub/tcsh/

The problem is that they don't work in most shells because the "-"
is reserved for other purposes (they cannot be made to work in
Bourne shells and descendants, e.g.,)


Of course, if all you need to do is run programs which those variables
set, you can wrap them with env:


env FOO-BAR=gobbledigook program arg ...

Casper
--
Expressed in this posting are my opinions. They are in no way related
to opinions held by my employer, Sun Microsystems.
Statements on Sun products included here are not gospel and may
be fiction rather than truth.

On 2006-12-18 19:00:10 +0000, Casper H.S. Dik <Casper.Dik@Sun.COM> said:
>
> Of course, if all you need to do is run programs which those variables
> set, you can wrap them with env:


No, unfortunately what I need to do is make a huge mass of
vendor-written tcsh scripts work.

Casper H.S. Dik wrote:

> The problem is that they don't work in most shells because the "-"
> is reserved for other purposes (they cannot be made to work in
> Bourne shells and descendants, e.g.,)

If anyone cares about this I did a bit of research.

It looks as if Sun build a pretty much unmodified 6.12.00 (this is
certainly the case for the sources at opensolaris.org).

Looking at the sources at tcsh.org, a check to setenv was put in just
before 6.12.00 and was taken out shortly afterwards (before 6.13
anyway). So, yes, 6.14.00 doesn't have it.

Various Linux boxes *report* the version as 6.12.00 but do not have the
check. I assume they are basically lying about the version: they're
not reporting changes from the distribution which they've made.

csh does not appear to ever have had this check:
setenv 'really=odd-name' 3
works (for some definition of "works").

It would be nice if Sun moved to 6.14.00, at least from our
perspective. I imagine it's a fairly low priority though - how many
people use tcsh (or any csh) any more? I hadn't for at least 15 years
until starting my current contract.

--tim

"Tim Bradshaw" <tfb+google@tfeb.org> writes:

>It would be nice if Sun moved to 6.14.00, at least from our
>perspective. I imagine it's a fairly low priority though - how many
>people use tcsh (or any csh) any more? I hadn't for at least 15 years
>until starting my current contract.

Yes, we should probably do this.

I'm a tcsh user myself (I've always much preferred tcsh's command
line completion then any of the other shells)

Casper

"Tim Bradshaw" wrote:

> It would be nice if Sun moved to 6.14.00, at least from our
> perspective. I imagine it's a fairly low priority though - how many
> people use tcsh (or any csh) any more? I hadn't for at least 15 years
> until starting my current contract.

One reason I heard for not moving yet is that it takes time to check that
the change does not break too many interfaces. If you can show a case
where the change actually *repairs* an incompatibility with older
versions, it might help (or not).

Marc wrote:

>
> One reason I heard for not moving yet is that it takes time to check that
> the change does not break too many interfaces. If you can show a case
> where the change actually *repairs* an incompatibility with older
> versions, it might help (or not).

Yes, of course. I wasn't hassling Sun to break stuff. The original
article is an example where a change to the current version would fix
something that broke between Solaris 8 & 10 (have not checked 9, we
don't have any 9 boxes).

I'm not sure how I'd file such a request with Sun anymore though.

On Dec 21, 7:36 am, "Tim Bradshaw" <tfb+goo...@tfeb.org> wrote:
> It would be nice if Sun moved to 6.14.00, at least from our
> perspective. I imagine it's a fairly low priority though - how many
> people use tcsh (or any csh) any more? I hadn't for at least 15 years
> until starting my current contract.

I've been using it since at least 93 or 94. I've been building on the
same .tcshrc config file since then. My collective .tcshrc files are
around 80K. I copy the same ones around to all my servers. I have a
few common ones that are sourced, plus one each for every o/s that I
use. And I can't even function without vi keys on the command line.


--
Andy