Package: mksh (39.1-4)

enhanced version of the Korn shell

mksh is the MirBSD enhanced version of the Public Domain Korn shell (pdksh), a Bourne-compatible shell which is largely similar to the original AT&T Korn shell; mksh is the only pdksh derivate currently being actively developed. It includes bug fixes and feature improvements, in order to produce a modern, robust shell good for interactive and especially script use. mksh has UTF-8 support (e.g. in the emacs command line editing mode); R39 corresponds to OpenBSD 4.6 ksh (without GNU bash-like $PS1 and fancy character classes). The code has throughoutly been cleaned up and simplified, bugs fixed, standards compliance added, and several enhancements (for extended compatibility to other modern shells, as well as a couple of its own) have been placed. This shell is Debian Policy 10.4 compliant and may be used as /bin/sh on Debian systems.

The mksh-static binary is a version of mksh, linked against dietlibc (if dietlibc exists for that Debian architecture), and optimised for small code size, for example for use on initrd or initramfs images, installation or rescue systems.

A sample ~/.mkshrc is included in /usr/share/doc/mksh/examples and provided as /etc/skel/.mkshrc conffile.

Tags: System Administration: System Boot, System Installation, Login, Software Development: Interpreter, POSIX shell, Implemented in: C, User Interface: Command Line, Command Shell, Made Of: Manuals in Nroff Format, Role: Program, Scope: Application, Application Suite: BSD, Purpose: Login, World Wide Web: CGI, Works with: People, Running Programs, Source Code, Text, Unicode, Supports Format: Plain Text