Date: Fri, 11 Jun 2010 11:46:41 +0930 From: Malcolm Kay <malcolm.kay@internode.on.net> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Switched to Bash and Comparison of Shells Message-ID: <201006111146.42080.malcolm.kay@internode.on.net> In-Reply-To: <1276190395.5437.53.camel@jane.spg.more.net> References: <1276190395.5437.53.camel@jane.spg.more.net>
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On Fri, 11 Jun 2010 02:49 am, Dan D Niles wrote: > I had been using csh/tcsh for 20 years and I just switched to > bash. The recent discussion about the differences between the > shells prompted me to take another look at bash. I thought > I'd share my perception of the differences between tcsh and > bash. It seems to me that it is a little late in the day to be changing to bash. Some well known Linux distributions are beginning to see that some non-posix features of bash can create difficulties. I believe recent releases of Ubuntu use dash as the prefered shell, and it looks as though Debian will be going the same way. Dash is supposed to be a modern, faster and cleaner implementation of sh -- if installed through FBSD ports it has the same man page as sh. > > The big thing tcsh is lacking, and the reason I switched, is > the lack of sensible redirection (as some call it). > Specifically, not being able to do 'command 2>/dev/null > >/somefile' is why I switched. I'm also a long time csh/tcsh user (somewhat more than 20 years) and freely admit that redirection at the command line can occassionally be a problem. I've always used sh for any serious scripting. Unless you wish to play with one or other fairly common but lesser known shells such as zsh or ksh then I would suggest that sh or dash (perhaps with a -E or -V option for interactive use) would be more appropriate than bash in a modern OS. But ultimately each to his own. Good luck, Malcolm
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