examples/loadables/README

Some examples of ready-to-dynamic-load builtins.  Most of the
examples given are reimplementations of standard commands whose
execution time is dominated by process startup time.  The
exceptions are sleep, which allows you to sleep for fractions
of a second, finfo, which provides access to the rest of the
elements of the `stat' structure that `test' doesn't let you
see, and pushd/popd/dirs, which allows you to compile them out
of the shell.

All of the new builtins in ksh93 that bash didn't already have
are included here, as is the ksh `print' builtin.

The configure script in the top-level source directory uses the
support/shobj-conf script to set the right values in the Makefile,
so you should not need to change the Makefile.  If your system
is not supported by support/shobj-conf, and it has the necessary
facilities for building shared objects and support for the
dlopen/dlsyn/dlclose/dlerror family of functions, please make
the necessary changes to support/shobj-conf and send the changes
to bash-maintainers@gnu.org.

Loadable builtins are loaded into a running shell with

	enable -f filename builtin-name

enable uses a simple reference-counting scheme to avoid unloading a
shared object that implements more than one loadable builtin before
all loadable builtins implemented in the object are removed.

Many of the details needed by builtin writers are found in hello.c,
the canonical example.  There is no real `builtin writers' programming
guide'.  The file template.c provides a template to use for creating
new loadable builtins.

The file "Makefile.inc" is created using the same values that configure
writes into Makefile.in, and is installed in the same directory as the
rest of the example builtins. It's intended to be a start at something
that can be modified or included to help you build your own loadables
without having to search for the right CFLAGS and LDFLAGS.

basename.c	Return non-directory portion of pathname.
cat.c		cat(1) replacement with no options - the way cat was intended.
dirname.c	Return directory portion of pathname.
fdflags.c	Change the flag associated with one of bash's open file desriptors.
finfo.c		Print file info.
head.c		Copy first part of files.
hello.c		Obligatory "Hello World" / sample loadable.
id.c		POSIX.2 user identity.
ln.c		Make links.
loadables.h	File loadable builtins can include for shell definitions.
logname.c	Print login name of current user.
Makefile.in	Simple makefile for the sample loadable builtins.
Makefile.inc.in	Sample makefile to use for loadable builtin development.
mkdir.c		Make directories.
mypid.c		Add $MYPID variable, demonstrate use of unload hook functio.n
necho.c		echo without options or argument interpretation.
pathchk.c	Check pathnames for validity and portability.
print.c		Loadable ksh-93 style print builtin.
printenv.c	Minimal builtin clone of BSD printenv(1).
push.c		Anyone remember TOPS-20?
realpath.c	Canonicalize pathnames, resolving symlinks.
rm.c		Remove files and directories.
rmdir.c		Remove directory.
seq.c		Print a sequence of decimal or floating point numbers.
setpgid.c	Set a process's pgrp; example of how to wrap a system call.
sleep.c		sleep for fractions of a second.
stat.c		populate an associative array with information about a file
strftime.c	Loadable builtin interface to strftime(3).
sync.c		Sync the disks by forcing pending filesystem writes to complete.
tee.c		Duplicate standard input.
template.c	Example template for loadable builtin.
truefalse.c	True and false builtins.
tty.c		Return terminal name.
uname.c		Print system information.
unlink.c	Remove a directory entry.
whoami.c	Print out username of current user.