11 Sep
2016
11 Sep
'16
5:39 p.m.
IIRC #! originated at Bell Labs but it got out to the
world via BSD.
Perhaps Dr. McIlroy could confirm / deny / expand upon the details (please?)
I recall Dennis discussing the feature at some length before installing it.
So the exact semantics, especially the injected argument, are almost]
certainly his. I don't know whether he built on a model from elsewhere.
#! appeared between v7 (1979) and v8 (1985). As v8 was never released,
it clearly made its way into the world via BSD and USG. BSD, being
more nimble, was likely first.
doug
11 Sep
11 Sep
6:11 p.m.
New subject: Shell control through external commands
On Sun, Sep 11, 2016 at 1:39 PM, Doug McIlroy <doug(a)cs.dartmouth.edu> wrote:
I recall Dennis discussing the feature at some length
before installing it.
So the exact semantics, especially the injected argument, are almost]
certainly his. I don't know whether he built on a model from elsewhere.
#! appeared between v7 (1979) and v8 (1985). As v8 was never released,
it clearly made its way into the world via BSD and USG. BSD, being
more nimble, was likely first.
Well that tracks my memory. I also thought it was from BSD, although it
might have come from some place else like Harvard, MIT, Ill, Rice or the
like. It is not in the V7 sources in Warren's code repository but I do
remember it in my customized V7 (polite form of hacking) at Tektronix on
our 11/70 and 11/44 in late 1979/early 1980 before I went to UCB. But I do
not remember that extension @ CMU (the tapes which I have had a hard time
getting read so I can not check).
I'm a little hazy, but I think it means that Mark Bales/Jim Kleckner gave
it to me with BSD stuff when we picked up csh, vi and pas @ Tek - which we
originally did in drips and drabs - during their time as summer students.
(I would not get an official set of 1BSD or 2BSD tapes for Tek until right
before I left for Berkeley a couple of years later).
BTW: It's also possible that's how fsck originally made it back to UCB (but
tjk might have given it to Joy directly), as Mark and Jim took back my
collection of CMU hacks at the end of that summer which was either 79 or
80. I do remember Mark being impressed with fsck.
Clem
6:27 p.m.
New subject: Shell control through external commands
On Sun, Sep 11, 2016 at 1:39 PM, Doug McIlroy <doug(a)cs.dartmouth.edu> wrote:
Also, 8th edition was essentially a re-port of 4.1c BSD, correct? If it
were already in BSD, it could conceivably come back into 8th edition via
that route. I found the following in /usr/src/sys/sys/TODO for 4.0BSD:
6. Exec fixes
IIRC #!
originated at Bell Labs but it got out to the world via BSD.
Perhaps Dr. McIlroy could confirm / deny / expand upon the details
(please?)
I recall Dennis discussing the feature at some length before installing it.
So the exact semantics, especially the injected argument, are almost]
certainly his. I don't know whether he built on a model from elsewhere.
#! appeared between v7 (1979) and v8 (1985). As v8 was never released,
it clearly made its way into the world via BSD and USG. BSD, being
more nimble, was likely first.
Implement dmr's #! feature; pass string
arguments through faster.
That would strongly imply that the feature originated with Dennis and was
known in Berkeley around the time for 4BSD.
4.0's 'getxfile()' in /usr/src/sys/sys/sys1.c does not recognize the
'#!'
sequence as a magic number, but 'exece()' in /usr/src/sys/newsys/sys1.c
does. No mention of it came up in my cursory scan of 3bsd. So it was
certain present by the time of 4.1c, but not before 4BSD that I found.
- Dan C.
6:50 p.m.
New subject: Shell control through external commands
On Sun, Sep 11, 2016 at 02:27:48PM -0400, Dan Cross wrote:
I tried to follow all the traces of #! and collected the results on
http://www.in-ulm.de/~mascheck/various/shebang/
I'd be happy to add and fix stuff, if somebody spots anything.
Warren, one has to be careful not to have trailing slashes in web archive URLs.
(e.g., after modifying URLs by hand). Example: calling
http://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=4BSD/usr/src/sys/
eventually results in the link
http://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=4BSD/usr/src/sys//sys/TODO
which yields "...is not a known file.", while
http://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=4BSD/usr/src/sys/sys/TODO
is valid.
-Sven
On Sun, Sep 11, 2016 at 1:39 PM, Doug McIlroy
<doug(a)cs.dartmouth.edu> wrote:
Also, 8th edition was essentially a re-port of 4.1c BSD, correct? If it
were already in BSD, it could conceivably come back into 8th edition via
that route. I found the following in /usr/src/sys/sys/TODO for 4.0BSD:
6. Exec fixes
> Implement dmr's #! feature; pass string arguments through faster.
See 4.0BSD /usr/src/sys/newsys/sys1.c
http://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=4BSD/usr/src/sys/newsys/sys1.c
for two mails from Dennis to Berkeley, sending the info and code.
IIRC #!
originated at Bell Labs but it got out to the world via BSD.
Perhaps Dr. McIlroy could confirm / deny / expand upon the details
(please?)
I recall Dennis discussing the feature at some length before installing it.
So the exact semantics, especially the injected argument, are almost]
certainly his. I don't know whether he built on a model from elsewhere.
#! appeared between v7 (1979) and v8 (1985). As v8 was never released,
it clearly made its way into the world via BSD and USG. BSD, being
more nimble, was likely first. From dmr Thu
Jan 10 04:25:49 1980 remote from research
The system has been changed so that if a
file being executed
begins with the magic characters #! , [...] 
10:13 p.m.
New subject: Shell control through external commands
On Sun, Sep 11, 2016, at 14:50, Sven Mascheck wrote:
I tried to follow all the traces of #! and collected
the results on
http://www.in-ulm.de/~mascheck/various/shebang/
I'd be happy to add and fix stuff, if somebody spots anything.
DEMOS (the soviet version of Unix) seems to have an independent
implementation that supports some features no-one else does
- use $* to define where the passed-in arguments [including the script
name] go between the interpreter-arguments specified on the #!-line
- alternate magic "/*#!"
I don't remember where I downloaded it from, I think maybe someone
posted it here a few years ago.
Relevant bits from sys1.c:
# define SCRMAG "#!"
# define SCRMAG2 "/*#!"
# define ARGPLACE "$*"
/* формат:
пусть есть файл /.../.../x
со следующим содержимым:
-------------------------------
|#!CMD A1 A2 A3
| .......
Вызываем команду:
x B1 B2
Запустится на самом деле такая команда:
CMD A1 A2 A3 /.../.../x B1 B2
Один из аргументов Ai может иметь вид $*
Тогда аргументы запуска подставятся на это место, а не в конец:
-------------------------------
|#!CMD A1 $* A2 A3
| .......
Вызываем:
x B1 B2
Запустится:
CMD A1 /.../.../x B1 B2 A2 A3
*/
There's no comment describing the SCRMAG2 feature but you can see it
used in code:
if (indir < NSYMLNK && u.u_offset > (off_t)2 ){
cp = (char *) &u.u_exdata;
if( !bcmp(cp, SCRMAG, 2 ))
off = (off_t) 2;
else if( u.u_offset > (off_t)4 && !bcmp( cp, SCRMAG2, 4))
off = (off_t) 4;
Sole uses of these features in the source tree:
cmd/OPQRS/spline.c,v:@/*#!/bin/cc -O $* -o spline
cmd/EFGHIJK/glob.c,v:@/*#!/bin/cc -o glob
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2790
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4 comments
5 participants
participants (5)
-
Clem Cole -
Dan Cross -
Doug McIlroy -
Random832 -
Sven Mascheck