loksh is a Linux port of the Korn shell supplied by OpenBSD. It follows the OpenBSD source closely and deliberately keeps platform-specific changes to a minimum rather than adding its own extensions.
The shell is intended for both interactive use and shell scripting. Its command language is a superset of the traditional Bourne shell language, with Korn shell facilities for arithmetic, arrays, job control, command-line editing and reusable functions. loksh targets Linux exclusively, which helps keep the port compact and makes it suitable for lightweight or resource-constrained systems.
This is public domain software.
Key Features
- Linux port of OpenBSD’s Korn shell.
- Closely tracks the upstream OpenBSD implementation.
- Keeps downstream modifications and additional features to a minimum.
- Suitable for interactive use and shell scripts.
- Mostly compatible with POSIX shell and AT&T Korn shell behaviour.
- Run commands, functions, builtins and external executables.
- Variables, positional parameters and indexed arrays.
- Parameter, command, arithmetic and tilde substitution.
- Integer arithmetic expressions using (( expression )).
- Conditional expressions using [[ expression ]].
- Filename globbing and pattern matching.
- Brace expansion and tilde expansion.
- Input and output redirection, including here documents.
- Construct pipelines and optionally enable pipefail behaviour.
- Conditional execution using && and ||.
- Asynchronous commands and background pipelines.
- Co-process support using the |& operator.
- If, case, for, select, while and until compound commands.
- User-defined shell functions.
- Interactive job control with jobs, fg, bg, wait and kill builtins.
- Command history and the fc history editor.
- Emacs, gmacs and Vi command-line editing modes.
- Aliases and command hashing.
- Signal and exit handling through shell traps.
- Login-shell processing through /etc/profile and the user’s .profile.
- Interactive startup configuration through the ENV parameter.
- Restricted-shell mode prevents directory changes, path modifications and unsafe redirections.
- Privileged-shell mode uses a separate system profile.
- Can be invoked as ksh, sh or restricted rksh.
- Small implementation without an external plugin or scripting framework.
Website: github.com/dimkr/loksh
Support:
Developer: dimkr and OpenBSD developers
License: Public Domain
loksh is written in C. Learn C with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
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