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RC(1) General Commands Manual RC(1) NAME rc - shell SYNOPSIS rc [-deiIlnopsvx] [-c command] [arguments] DESCRIPTION rc is a command interpreter and programming language similar to sh(1). It is based on the AT&T Plan 9 shell of the same name. The shell offers a C- like syntax (much more so than the C shell), and a powerful mechanism for manipulating variables. It is reasonably small and reasonably fast, espe- cially when compared to contemporary shells. Its use is intended to be in- teractive, but the language lends itself well to scripts. OPTIONS -c0 If -c0 is present, commands are executed from the immediately fol- lowing argument. Any further arguments to rc are placed in $*.0 Thus: rc -c 'echo $*' 1 2 30 prints out 1 2 30 -d0 This flag causes rc not to ignore SIGQUIT0 or SIGTERM.0 Thus rc can be made to dump core if sent SIGQUIT.0 This flag is only useful for debugging rc. -e0 If the -e0 flag is present, then rc will exit if the exit status of a command is false (nonzero). rc will not exit, however, if a con- ditional fails, e.g., an if()0 command. -i0 If the -i0 flag is present or if the input to rc is from a terminal (as determined by isatty(3)) then rc will be in interactive mode. That is, a prompt (from $prompt(1))0 will be printed before an input line is taken, and rc will ignore SIGINT.0 -I0 If the -I0 flag is present, or if the input to rc is not from a ter- minal, then rc will not be in interactive mode. No prompts will be printed, and SIGINT0 will cause rc to exit. -l0 If the -l0 flag is present, or if rc's argv[0][0]0 is a dash (-),0 then rc will behave as a login shell. That is, it will run commands from $home/.rcrc,0 if this file exists, before reading any other in- put. -n0 This flag causes rc to read its input and parse it, but not to exe- cute any commands. This is useful for syntax checking on scripts. If used in combination with the -x0 flag, rc will print each command as it is parsed in a form similar to the one used for exporting functions into the environment. -o0 This flag prevents the usual practice of trying to open /dev/null0 on file descriptors 0, 1, and 2, if any of those descriptors are in- herited closed. -p0 This flag prevents rc from initializing shell functions from the en- vironment. This allows rc to run in a protected mode, whereby it becomes more difficult for an rc script to be subverted by placing false commands in the environment. (Note that the presence of this flag does not mean that it is safe to run setuid rc scripts; the usual caveats about the setuid bit still apply.) -s0 This flag causes rc to read from standard input. Any arguments are placed in $*.0 -v0 This flag causes rc to echo its input to standard error as it is read. -x0 This flag causes rc to print every command on standard error before it is executed. It can be useful for debugging rc scripts. COMMANDS A simple command is a sequence of words, separated by white space (space and tab) characters that ends with a newline, semicolon (;),0 or ampersand (&).0 The first word of a command is the name of that command. If the name begins with /,0 ./,0 or ../,0 then the name is used as an absolute path name referring to an executable file. Otherwise, the name of the command is looked up in a table of shell functions, builtin commands, or as a file in the directories named by $path.0 Background Tasks A command ending with &0 is run in the background; that is, the shell re- turns immediately rather than waiting for the command to complete. Back- ground commands have /dev/null0 connected to their standard input unless an explicit redirection for standard input is used. Subshells A command prefixed with an at-sign (@)0 is executed in a subshell. This insulates the parent shell from the effects of state changing operations such as a cd or a variable assignment. For example: @ {cd ..; make}0 will run make(1) in the parent directory (..),0 but leaves the shell run- ning in the current directory. Line continuation A long logical line may be continued over several physical lines by termi- nating each line (except the last) with a backslash (\).0 The backslash- newline sequence is treated as a space. A backslash is not otherwise spe- cial to rc. (In addition, inside quotes a backslash loses its special meaning even when it is followed by a newline.) Quoting rc interprets several characters specially; special characters automati- cally terminate words. The following characters are special: # ; & | ^ $ = ` ' { } ( ) < >0 The single quote (')0 prevents special treatment of any character other than itself. All characters, including control characters, newlines, and backslashes between two quote characters are treated as an uninterpreted string. A quote character itself may be quoted by placing two quotes in a row. The minimal sequence needed to enter the quote character is ''''.0 The empty string is represented by ''.0 Thus: echo 'What''s the plan, Stan?'0 prints out What's the plan, Stan?0 The number sign (#)0 begins a comment in rc. All characters up to but not including the next newline are ignored. Note that backslash continuation does not work inside a comment, i.e., the backslash is ignored along with everything else. Grouping Zero or more commands may be grouped within braces (``{''0 and ``}''),0 and are then treated as one command. Braces do not otherwise define scope; they are used only for command grouping. In particular, be wary of the command: for (i) {0 command0 } | command0 Since pipe binds tighter than for,0 this command does not perform what the user expects it to. Instead, enclose the whole for0 statement in braces: {for (i) command} | command0 Fortunately, rc's grammar is simple enough that a (confident) user can un- derstand it by examining the skeletal yacc(1) grammar at the end of this man page (see the section entitled GRAMMAR). Input and output The standard output may be redirected to a file with command > file0 and the standard input may be taken from a file with command < file0 Redirections can appear anywhere in the line: the word following the redi- rection symbol is the filename and must be quoted if it contains spaces or other special characters. These are all equivalent. echo 1 2 3 > foo0 > foo echo 1 2 30 echo 1 2 > foo 30 File descriptors other than 0 and 1 may be specified also. For example, to redirect standard error to a file, use: command >[2] file0 In order to duplicate a file descriptor, use >[n=m].0 Thus to redirect both standard output and standard error to the same file, use command > file >[2=1]0 As in sh, redirections are processed from left to right. Thus this se- quence command >[2=1] > file0 is usually a mistake. It first duplicates standard error to standard out- put; then redirects standard output to a file, leaving standard error wher- ever standard output originally was. To close a file descriptor that may be open, use >[n=].0 For example, to close file descriptor 7: command >[7=]0 Note that no spaces may appear in these constructs: command > [2] file0 would send the output of the command to a file named [2],0 with the in- tended filename appearing in the command's argument list. In order to place the output of a command at the end of an already existing file, use: command >> file0 If the file does not exist, then it is created. ``Here documents'' are supported as in sh with the use of command << 'eof-marker'0 Subsequent lines form the standard input of the command, till a line con- taining just the marker, in this case eof-marker,0 is encountered. If the end-of-file marker is enclosed in quotes, then no variable substitu- tion occurs inside the here document. Otherwise, every variable is substi- tuted by its space-separated-list value (see Flat Lists, below), and if a ^0 character follows a variable name, it is deleted. This allows the unam- biguous use of variables adjacent to text, as in $variable^follow0 To include a literal $0 in a here document when an unquoted end-of-file marker is being used, enter it as $$.0 Additionally, rc supports ``here strings'', which are like here documents, except that input is taken directly from a string on the command line. Their use is illustrated here: cat <<< 'this is a here string' | wc0 (This feature enables rc to export functions using here documents into the environment; the author does not expect users to find this feature useful.) Pipes Two or more commands may be combined in a pipeline by placing the vertical bar (|)0 between them. The standard output (file descriptor 1) of the com- mand on the left is tied to the standard input (file descriptor 0) of the command on the right. The notation |[n=m]0 indicates that file descriptor n of the left process is connected to file descriptor m of the right process. |[n]0 is a shorthand for |[n=0].0 As an example, to pipe the standard error of a command to wc(1), use: command |[2] wc0 As with file redirections, no spaces may occur in the construct specifying numbered file descriptors. The exit status of a pipeline is considered true if and only if every com- mand in the pipeline exits true. Commands as Arguments Some commands, like cmp(1) or diff(1), take their arguments on the command line, and do not read input from standard input. It is convenient some- times to build nonlinear pipelines so that a command like cmp can read the output of two other commands at once. rc does it like this: cmp <{command} <{command}0 compares the output of the two commands in braces. Note: since this form of redirection is implemented with some kind of pipe, and since one cannot lseek(2) on a pipe, commands that use lseek(2) will hang. For example, some versions of diff(1) use lseek(2) on their inputs. Data can be sent down a pipe to several commands using tee(1) and the out- put version of this notation: echo hi there | tee >{sed 's/^/p1 /'} >{sed 's/^/p2 /'}0 CONTROL STRUCTURES The following may be used for control flow in rc: If-Else Statements if (test) {0 cmd } else cmd0 The test is executed, and if its return status is zero, the first command is executed, otherwise the second is. Braces are not manda- tory around the commands. However, an else0 statement is valid only if it follows a close-brace on the same line. Otherwise, the if0 is taken to be a simple-if: if (test)0 command0 While and For Loops while (test) cmd0 rc executes the test and performs the command as long as the test is true. for (var in list) cmd0 rc sets var to each element of list (which may contain variables and backquote substitutions) and runs cmd. If ``in0 list'' is omitted, then rc will set var to each element of $*.0 For example: for (i in `{ls -F | grep '\*$' | sed 's/\*$//'}) { commands }0 will set $i0 to the name of each file in the current directory that is executable. Switch switch (list) { case ... }0 rc looks inside the braces after a switch0 for statements beginning with the word case.0 If any of the patterns following case0 match the list supplied to switch,0 then the commands up until the next case0 statement are executed. The metacharacters *,0 [0 or ?0 should not be quoted; matching is performed only against the strings in list, not against file names. (Matching for case statements is the same as for the ~0 command.) Logical Operators There are a number of operators in rc which depend on the exit status of a command. command && command0 executes the first command and then executes the second command if and only if the first command exits with a zero exit status (``true'' in Unix). command || command0 executes the first command and then executes the second command if and only if the first command exits with a nonzero exit status (``false'' in Unix). ! command0 negates the exit status of a command. PATTERN MATCHING There are two forms of pattern matching in rc. One is traditional shell globbing. This occurs in matching for file names in argument lists: command argument argument ...0 When the characters *,0 [0 or ?0 occur in an argument or command, rc looks at the argument as a pattern for matching against files. (Contrary to the behavior other shells exhibit, rc will only perform pattern matching if a metacharacter occurs unquoted and literally in the input. Thus, foo='*'0 echo $foo0 will always echo just a star. In order for non-literal metacharacters to be expanded, an eval0 statement must be used in order to rescan the input.) Pattern matching occurs according to the following rules: a *0 matches any number (including zero) of characters. A ?0 matches any single character, and a [0 followed by a number of characters followed by a ]0 matches a sin- gle character in that class. The rules for character class matching are the same as those for ed(1), with the exception that character class nega- tion is achieved with the tilde (~),0 not the caret (^),0 since the caret already means something else in rc. rc also matches patterns against strings with the ~0 command: ~ subject pattern pattern ...0 ~0 sets $status0 to zero if and only if a supplied pattern matches any sin- gle element of the subject list. Thus ~ foo f*0 sets status to zero, while ~ (bar baz) f*0 sets status to one. The null list is matched by the null list, so ~ $foo ()0 checks to see whether $foo0 is empty or not. This may also be achieved by the test ~ $#foo 00 Note that inside a ~0 command rc does not match patterns against file names, so it is not necessary to quote the characters *,0 [0 and ?.0 How- ever, rc does expand the subject against filenames if it contains metachar- acters. Thus, the command ~ * ?0 returns true if any of the files in the current directory have a single- character name. If the ~0 command is given a list as its first argument, then a successful match against any of the elements of that list will cause ~0 to return true. For example: ~ (foo goo zoo) z*0 is true. LISTS AND VARIABLES The primary data structure in rc is the list, which is a sequence of words. Parentheses are used to group lists. The empty list is represented by ().0 Lists have no hierarchical structure; a list inside another list is ex- panded so the outer list contains all the elements of the inner list. Thus, the following are all equivalent one two three0 (one two three)0 ((one) () ((two three)))0 Note that the null string, '',0 and the null list, (),0 are two very dif- ferent things. Assigning the null string to a variable is a valid opera- tion, but it does not remove its definition. null = '' empty = () echo $#null $#empty0 produces the output 1 00 List Concatenation Two lists may be joined by the concatenation operator (^).0 Concatenation works according to the following rules: if the two lists have the same num- ber of elements, then concatenation is pairwise: echo (a- b- c-)^(1 2 3)0 produces the output a-1 b-2 c-30 Otherwise, at least one of the lists must have a single element, and then the concatenation is distributive: cc -^(O g c) (malloc alloca)^.c0 has the effect of performing the command cc -O -g -c malloc.c alloca.c0 A single word is a list of length one, so echo foo^bar0 produces the output foobar0 Free Carets rc inserts carets (concatenation operators) for free in certain situations, in order to save some typing on the user's behalf. For example, the above example could also be typed in as: opts=(O g c) files=(malloc alloca) cc -$opts $files.c0 rc takes care to insert a free-caret between the ``-''0 and $opts,0 as well as between $files0 and .c.0 The rule for free carets is as follows: if a word or keyword is immediately followed by another word, keyword, dollar- sign or backquote, then rc inserts a caret between them. Variables A list may be assigned to a variable, using the notation: var = list0 The special variable *0 may also be assigned to using this notation; rc has no set builtin. Any non-empty sequence of characters, except a sequence including only dig- its, may be used as a variable name. Any character except =0 may be used, but special characters must be quoted. All user-defined variables are ex- ported into the environment. The value of a variable is referenced with the dollar ($)0 operator: $var0 Any variable which has not been assigned a value returns the null list, (),0 when referenced. Multiple references are allowed: a = foo0 b = a0 echo $ $ b0 prints foo0 A variable's definition may also be removed by assigning the null list to a variable: var=()0 For ``free careting'' to work correctly, rc must make certain assumptions about what characters may appear in a variable name. rc assumes that a variable name consists only of alphanumeric characters, underscore (_)0 and star (*).0 To reference a variable with other characters in its name, quote the variable name. Thus: echo $'we$Ird:Variab!le'0 Local Variables Any number of variable assignments may be made local to a single command by typing: a=foo b=bar ... command0 The command may be a compound command, so for example: path=. ifs=() {0 ...0 }0 sets path0 to .0 and removes ifs0 for the duration of one long compound command. Variable Subscripts Variables may be subscripted with the notation $var(n)0 where n is a list of integers (origin 1). The opening parenthesis must im- mediately follow the variable name. The list of subscripts need not be in order or even unique. Thus, a=(one two three)0 echo $a(3 3 3)0 prints three three three0 If n references a nonexistent element, then $var(n)0 returns the null list. The notation $n,0 where n is an integer, is a shorthand for $*(n).0 Thus, rc's arguments may be referred to as $1,0 $2,0 and so on. Note also that the list of subscripts may be given by any of rc's list op- erations: $var(`{awk 'BEGIN{for(i=1;i<=10;i++)print i;exit; }'})0 returns the first 10 elements of $var.0 To count the number of elements in a variable, use $#var0 This returns a single-element list, with the number of elements in $var.0 Flat Lists In order to create a single-element list from a multi-element list, with the components space-separated, use the dollar-caret ($^)0 operator: $^var0 This is useful when the normal list concatenation rules need to be by- passed. For example, to append a single period at the end of $path,0 use: echo $^path.0 For compability with the Plan 9 rc, $"var0 is accepted as a synonym for dollar-caret. Backquote Substitution A list may be formed from the output of a command by using backquote sub- stitution: `{ command }0 returns a list formed from the standard output of the command in braces. $ifs0 is used to split the output into list elements. By default, $ifs0 has the value space-tab-newline. The braces may be omitted if the command is a single word. Thus `ls0 may be used instead of `{ls}.0 This last fea- ture is useful when defining functions that expand to useful argument lists. A frequent use is: fn src { echo *.[chy] }0 followed by wc `src0 (This will print out a word-count of all C source files in the current di- rectory.) In order to override the value of $ifs0 for a single backquote substitu- tion, use: `` (ifs-list) { command }0 $ifs0 will be temporarily ignored and the command's output will be split as specified by the list following the double backquote. For example: `` ($nl :) {cat /etc/passwd}0 splits up /etc/passwd0 into fields, assuming that $nl0 contains a newline as its value. SPECIAL VARIABLES Several variables are known to rc and are treated specially. In the fol- lowing list, ``default'' indicates that rc gives the variable a default value on startup; ``no-export'' indicates that the variable is never ex- ported; and ``read-only'' indicates that an attempt to set the variable will silently have no effect. Also, ``alias'' means that the variable is aliased to the same name in cap- itals. For example, an assignment to $cdpath0 causes an automatic assign- ment to $CDPATH,0 and vice-versa. If $CDPATH0 is set when rc is started, its value is imported into $cdpath.0 $cdpath0 and $path0 are rc lists; $CD- PATH0 and $PATH0 are colon-separated lists. Only the names spelt in capi- tals are exported into the environment. * (no-export)0 The argument list of rc. $1, $2,0 etc. are the same as $*(1),0 $*(2),0 etc. 0 (default no-export)0 The variable $00 holds the value of argv[0]0 with which rc was in- voked. Additionally, $00 is set to the name of a function for the duration of the execution of that function, and $00 is also set to the name of the file being interpreted for the duration of a .0 com- mand. $00 is not an element of $*,0 and is never treated as one. apid (no-export)0 The process ID of the last process started in the background. apids (no-export read-only)0 A list whose elements are the process IDs of all background processes which are still alive, or which have died and have not been waited for yet. bqstatus (no-export)0 The exit status of the rc forked to execute the most recent back- quote substitution. Note that, unlike $status,0 $bqstatus0 is al- ways a single element list (see EXIT STATUS below). For example: echo foo |grep bar; whatis status0 prints status=(0 1)0 whereas x=`{echo foo |grep bar}; whatis bqstatus0 prints bqstatus=10 cdpath (alias)0 A list of directories to search for the target of a cd command. The empty string stands for the current directory. Note that if the $cdpath0 variable does not contain the current directory, then the current directory will not be searched; this allows directory searching to begin in a directory other than the current directory. history0 $history0 contains the name of a file to which commands are appended as rc reads them. This facilitates the use of a stand-alone history program (such as history(1)) which parses the contents of the his- tory file and presents them to rc for reinterpretation. If $his- tory0 is not set, then rc does not append commands to any file. home (alias)0 The default directory for the builtin cd command, and the directory in which rc looks to find its initialization file, .rcrc,0 if rc has been started up as a login shell. ifs (default)0 The internal field separator, used for splitting up the output of backquote commands for digestion as a list. On startup, rc assigns the list containing the characters space, tab, and newline to $ifs.0 path (alias)0 This is a list of directories to search in for commands. The empty string stands for the current directory. If neither $PATH0 nor $path0 is set at startup time, $path0 assumes a default value suit- able for your system. This is typically (/usr/local/bin /usr/bin /usr/ucb /bin .)0 pid (default no-export)0 On startup, $pid0 is initialized to the numeric process ID of the currently running rc. prompt (default)0 This variable holds the two prompts (in list form, of course) that rc prints. $prompt(1)0 is printed before each command is read, and $prompt(2)0 is printed when input is expected to continue on the next line. rc sets $prompt0 to ('; ' '')0 by default. The reason for this is that it enables an rc user to grab commands from previ- ous lines using a mouse, and to present them to rc for re-interpre- tation; the semicolon prompt is simply ignored by rc. The null $prompt(2)0 also has its justification: an rc script, when typed interactively, will not leave $prompt(2)'s0 on the screen, and can therefore be grabbed by a mouse and placed directly into a file for use as a shell script, without further editing being necessary. prompt (function)0 If this function is defined, then it gets executed every time rc is about to print $prompt(1).0 status (no-export read-only)0 The exit status of the last command. If the command exited with a numeric value, that number is the status. If the command died with a signal, the status is the name of that signal; if a core file was created, the string ``+core''0 is appended. The value of $status0 for a pipeline is a list, with one entry, as above, for each process in the pipeline. For example, the command ls | wc0 usually sets $status0 to (0 0).0 version (default)0 On startup, the first element of this list variable is initialized to a string which identifies this version of rc. The second element is initialized to a string which can be found by ident(1) and the what command of sccs(1). FUNCTIONS rc functions are identical to rc scripts, except that they are stored in memory and are automatically exported into the environment. A shell func- tion is declared as: fn name { commands }0 rc scans the definition until the close-brace, so the function can span more than one line. The function definition may be removed by typing fn name0 (One or more names may be specified. With an accompanying definition, all names receive the same definition. This is sometimes useful for assigning the same signal handler to many signals. Without a definition, all named functions are deleted.) When a function is executed, $*0 is set to the ar- guments to that function for the duration of the command. Thus a reason- able definition for l,0 a shorthand for ls(1), could be: fn l { ls -FC $* }0 but not fn l { ls -FC } # WRONG0 INTERRUPTS AND SIGNALS rc recognizes a number of signals, and allows the user to define shell functions which act as signal handlers. rc by default traps SIGINT0 when it is in interactive mode. SIGQUIT0 and SIGTERM0 are ignored, unless rc has been invoked with the -d0 flag. However, user-defined signal handlers may be written for these and all other signals. The way to define a signal handler is to write a function by the name of the signal in lower case. Thus: fn sighup { echo hangup; rm /tmp/rc$pid.*; exit }0 In addition to Unix signals, rc recognizes the artificial signal SIGEXIT0 which occurs as rc is about to exit. In order to remove a signal handler's definition, remove it as though it were a regular function. For example: fn sigint0 returns the handler of SIGINT0 to the default value. In order to ignore a signal, set the signal handler's value to {}.0 Thus: fn sigint {}0 causes SIGINT0 to be ignored by the shell. Only signals that are being ig- nored are passed on to programs run by rc; signal functions are not ex- ported. On System V-based Unix systems, rc will not allow you to trap SIGCLD.0 BUILTIN COMMANDS Builtin commands execute in the context of the shell, but otherwise behave exactly like other commands. Although !, ~ and @ are not strictly speaking builtin commands, they can usually be used as such. . [-i] file [arg ...] Reads file as input to rc and executes its contents. With a -i0 flag, input is interactive. Thus from within a shell script, . -i /dev/tty0 does the ``right thing''. break Breaks from the innermost for0 or while,0 as in C. It is an error to invoke break outside of a loop. (Note that there is no break keyword between commands in switch0 statements, unlike C.) builtin command [arg ...] Executes the command ignoring any function definition of the same name. This command is present to allow functions with the same names as builtins to use the underlying builtin or binary. For ex- ample: fn ls { builtin ls -FC $* }0 is a reasonable way to pass a default set of arguments to ls(1),0 whereas fn ls { ls -FC $* } # WRONG0 is a non-terminating recursion, which will cause rc0 to exhaust its stack space and (eventually) terminate if it is executed. cd [directory] Changes the current directory to directory. The variable $cdpath0 is searched for possible locations of directory, analogous to the searching of $path0 for executable files. With no argument, cd changes the current directory to $home.0 echo [-n] [--] [arg ...] Prints its arguments to standard output, terminated by a newline. Arguments are separated by spaces. If the first argument is -n0 no final newline is printed. If the first argument is --,0 then all other arguments are echoed literally. This is used for echoing a literal -n.0 eval [list] Concatenates the elements of list with spaces and feeds the result- ing string to rc for re-scanning. This is the only time input is rescanned in rc. exec [arg ...] Replaces rc with the given command. If the exec contains only redi- rections, then these redirections apply to the current shell and the shell does not exit. For example, exec >[2] err.out0 places further output to standard error in the file err.out. exit [status] Cause the current shell to exit with the given exit status. If no argument is given, the current value of $status0 is used. limit [-h] [resource [value]] Similar to the csh(1) limit builtin, this command operates upon the BSD-style resource limits of a process. The -h0 flag displays/al- ters the hard limits. The resources which can be shown or altered are cputime, filesize, datasize, stacksize, coredumpsize, memoryuse, and, where supported, descriptors, memoryuse, memoryrss, maxproc, memorylocked, and filelocks. For example: limit coredumpsize 00 disables core dumps. To set a soft limit equal to the hard limit: limit `{limit -h datasize}0 newpgrp Puts rc into a new process group. This builtin is useful for making rc behave like a job-control shell in a hostile environment. One example is the NeXT Terminal program, which implicitly assumes that each shell it forks will put itself into a new process group. return [n] Returns from the current function, with status n, where n is a valid exit status, or a list of them. Thus it is legal to have return (sigpipe 1 2 3)0 (This is commonly used to allow a function to return with the exit status of a previously executed pipeline of commands.) If n is omitted, then $status0 is left unchanged. It is an error to invoke return when not inside a function. shift [n] Deletes n elements from the beginning of $*0 and shifts the other elements down by n. n defaults to 1. umask [mask] Sets the current umask (see umask(2)) to the octal mask. If no ar- gument is present, the current mask value is printed. wait [pid] Waits for process with the specified pid, which must have been started by rc, to exit. If no pid is specified, rc waits for all its child processes to exit. whatis [-b] [-f] [-p] [-s] [-v] [--] [name ...] Prints a definition of the named objects. For builtins, builtin0 foo is printed; for functions, including signal handlers, their def- initions are printed; for executable files, path names are printed; and for variables, their values are printed. The flags restrict output to builtins, functions, executable programs, signal handlers, and variables, respectively. If no names are specified, rc lists all objects of that type. (This is not permitted for -p.)0 Without arguments, whatis0 is equivalent to whatis -fv,0 and prints the val- ues of all shell variables and functions. Note that whatis output is suitable for input to rc; by saving the output of whatis in a file, it should be possible to recreate the state of rc by sourcing this file with a .0 command. Another note: whatis -s > file0 cannot be used to store the state of rc's signal handlers in a file, because builtins with redirections are run in a subshell, and rc always restores signal handlers to their default value after a fork().0 Since whatis uses getopt(3) to parse its arguments, you can use the special argument --0 to terminate its flags. This allows you to use names beginning with a dash, such as the history(1) commands. For example, whatis -- -p0 EXAMPLES The shift builtin only shifts $*.0 This function can shift any variable (except $lshift).0 fn lshift { lshift=$*; *=$$1; shift $lshift(2); $lshift(1)=$* }0 With this definition in place, walrus = (shoes ships sealing-wax cabbages kings)0 lshift walrus 30 whatis walrus0 prints walrus=(cabbages kings)0 The $^var0 operator flattens a list by separating each element with a space. This function allows the separator to be an arbitrary string. fn lflat {0 lflat=$*; *=$$10 while () {0 echo -n $1; shift0 ~ $#* 0 && break0 echo -n $lflat(2)0 }0 With this definition in place, hops=(uunet mcvax ukc tlg)0 lflat hops !0 prints (with no final newline) uunet!mcvax!ukc!tlg0 EXIT STATUS The exit status of rc is normally the same as that of the last command exe- cuted. If the last command was a pipeline, rc exits 00 if every command in the pipeline did; otherwise it exits 1.0 rc can be made to exit with a particular status using the exit builtin. GRAMMAR Here is rc's grammar, edited to remove semantic actions. %term ANDAND BACKBACK BANG CASE COUNT DUP ELSE END FLAT FN FOR IF IN %term OROR PIPE REDIR SUB SUBSHELL SWITCH TWIDDLE WHILE WORD HUH %left WHILE ')' ELSE %left ANDAND OROR '\n' %left BANG SUBSHELL %left PIPE %right '$' %left SUB %start rc %% rc: line end | error end end: END /* EOF */ | '\n' cmdsa: cmd ';' | cmd '&' line: cmd | cmdsa line body: cmd | cmdsan body cmdsan: cmdsa | cmd '\n' brace: '{' body '}' paren: '(' body ')' assign: first '=' word epilog: /* empty */ | redir epilog redir: DUP | REDIR word case: CASE words ';' | CASE words '\n' cbody: cmd | case cbody | cmdsan cbody iftail: cmd %prec ELSE | brace ELSE optnl cmd cmd : /* empty */ %prec WHILE | simple | brace epilog | IF paren optnl iftail | FOR '(' word IN words ')' optnl cmd | FOR '(' word ')' optnl cmd | WHILE paren optnl cmd | SWITCH '(' word ')' optnl '{' cbody '}' | TWIDDLE optcaret word words | cmd ANDAND optnl cmd | cmd OROR optnl cmd | cmd PIPE optnl cmd | redir cmd %prec BANG | assign cmd %prec BANG | BANG optcaret cmd | SUBSHELL optcaret cmd | FN words brace | FN words optcaret: /* empty */ | '^' simple: first | simple word | simple redir first: comword | first '^' sword sword: comword | keyword word: sword | word '^' sword comword: '$' sword | '$' sword SUB words ')' | COUNT sword | FLAT sword | '`' sword | '`' brace | BACKBACK word brace | BACKBACK word sword | '(' words ')' | REDIR brace | WORD keyword: FOR | IN | WHILE | IF | SWITCH | FN | ELSE | CASE | TWIDDLE | BANG | SUBSHELL words: /* empty */ | words word optnl: /* empty */ | optnl '\n' FILES $HOME/.rcrc,0 /tmp/rc*,0 /dev/null0 CREDITS rc was written by Byron Rakitzis, with valuable help from Paul Haahr, Hugh Redelmeier and David Sanderson. The design of this shell was copied from the rc that Tom Duff wrote at Bell Labs. BUGS There is a compile-time limit on the number of ;0 separated commands in a line: usually 500. This is sometimes a problem for automatically generated scripts: substituting the newline character for ;0 avoids the limit. On modern systems that support /dev/fd0 or /proc/self/fd,0 <{foo}0 style redirection is implemented that way. However, on older systems it is im- plemented with named pipes. Allegedly, it is sometimes possible to foil rc into removing the FIFO it places in /tmp0 prematurely, or it is even possi- ble to cause rc to hang. (The current maintainer has never seen this, but then he doesn't use systems which lack /dev/fd0 any more. If anybody can reproduce this problem, please let the maintainer know.) The echo command does not need to be a builtin. It is one for reasons of performance and portability (of rc scripts). There should be a way to avoid exporting a variable. Extra parentheses around a ~0 expression or a !0 expression are a syntax error. Thus, this code is illegal. while ((~ $1 -*) && (! ~ $1 --)) { ...0 The redundant inner parentheses must be omitted. Variable subscripting cannot be used in here documents. The limit0 builtin silently ignores extra arguments. Backquote substitution never produces empty strings - multiple consecutive occurrences of the separator are treated the same as a single occurrence. ifs=! { x = `{echo -n a!!b}; whatis x }0 x=(a b) # NOT x=(a '' b)0 Bug reports should be mailed to <toby@paccrat.org>.0 INCOMPATIBILITIES Here is a list of features which distinguish this incarnation of rc from the one described in the Bell Labs manual pages: The Tenth Edition rc does not have the else keyword. Instead, if is op- tionally followed by an if not clause which is executed if the preceding if test does not succeed. Backquotes are slightly different in Tenth Edition rc: a backquote must al- ways be followed by a left-brace. This restriction is not present for sin- gle-word commands in this rc. For .0 file, the Tenth Edition rc searches $path0 for file. This rc does not, since it is not considered useful. The list flattening operator, $^foo,0 is spelt $"foo0 in those versions of the Bell Labs rc which have it. The following are all new with this version of rc: The -n0 flag, here strings (they facilitate exporting of functions with here documents into the environment), the return and break keywords, the echo builtin, the bqs- tatus0 and version0 variables, the support for the GNU readline(3) library, and the support for the prompt0 function. This rc also sets $00 to the name of a function being executed/file being sourced. SEE ALSO ``rc -- A Shell for Plan 9 and UNIX Systems'', Unix Research System, Tenth Edition, Volume 2. (Saunders College Publishing) http://static.tobold.org/rc/rc-duff.html,0 an updated version of the above paper. history(1) 2015-05-13 RC(1)
NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | COMMANDS | CONTROL STRUCTURES | PATTERN MATCHING | LISTS AND VARIABLES | SPECIAL VARIABLES | FUNCTIONS | INTERRUPTS AND SIGNALS | BUILTIN COMMANDS | EXAMPLES | EXIT STATUS | GRAMMAR | FILES | CREDITS | BUGS | INCOMPATIBILITIES | SEE ALSO
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