status of ksh (korn shell) in macports

[Ryan Schmidt]

On Aug 6, 2022, at 06:22, joerg van den hoff wrote:

> `port search ksh' currently yields the following 4 korn shell packages:
> 
> ksh @2020.0.0_1 (shells)
>    the KornShell UNIX shell and programming language (stable version)
> 
> ksh-devel @20200125-g43d1853 (shells)
>    the KornShell UNIX shell and programming language (development version)
> 
> ksh93 @93u+20120801_2 (shells)
>    the AT&T KornShell
> 
> ksh93-devel @93u+m-1.0.0-beta.2 (shells)
>    continued development of the AT&T KornShell
> 
> 
> in view of the current naming scheme (_and_ info string denoting it as "stable version"), the unwary user very probably would wrongly conclude that the first one, `ksh @2020.0.0_1', is the canonical "true" korn shell to install. but it is not...
> 
> I wonder if the package names (and descriptions) should not be somewhat modified since the ksh93u+m project now has done it's first release with many bug fixes relative to ksh93u+, and given the project's aim to just fix existing bugs in 93u+, might be validly viewed as true fully compatible successor to 93u+ (which ksh2020 most definitely is not). it also seems that linux distros are partly already moving in that way (adopting 93u+m as default ksh).
> 
> so I would find it preferable to either denote ksh93 at 93u+20120801_2 (the last official ksh release) or possibly already ksh93-devel at 93u+m-1.0.1 as "ksh" and/or to rename the others to `ksh2020` (which identifies that (abandoned) project to those who care).
> 
> not a big deal but I think it would help to avoid possible confusion.

Yes...

ksh and ksh-devel were added when what you now call ksh2020 was under development and was supposed to be the future of ksh93. Since ksh93 hadn't been able to build since OS X Mavericks I was happy to have a replacement that did build, so I deleted ksh93. Later, the ksh2020 development effort was rejected by upstream, the upstream repository was reverted, and new more nuanced development of ksh93 began in a fork. At that point I reintroduced the ksh93 port and added the ksh93-devel port.

I'm inclined to remove the ksh and ksh-devel ports (that is, to mark them as replaced_by ksh93 for one year and then delete them) unless someone thinks there is still a need to preserve that branch.


> ps: and if I recall correctly `KornShell' was meant to denote the language while the shell's name is "Korn Shell" ;).

Good grief! I remember pausing to consider whether to use "KornShell" or "Korn Shell" in the description but that interpretation never occurred to me. Do you have a link where that interpretation is described?

The manpage says "ksh, rksh - KornShell, a standard/restricted command and programming language" which doesn't appear to make the distinction. The wikipedia page says "KornShell (ksh) is a Unix shell".