[TUHS] Command line post-arguments with #!

Norman Wilson norman at oclsc.org
Thu Dec 15 11:46:38 AEST 2011


Sven Mascheck:

  With "original implementation (post 7th ed", I meant the undistributed
  BellLabs-internal further development of 7th, the first system ever
  to implement #!, leading to 8th ed, etc. (4BSD just incorporated this).
  Not System V or other relatives, though.

=======

Can you cite a reference?

I'm quite familiar with what went on inside the system that was
later called 8th Edition, having been on the inside at Bell Labs
starting in mid-1984.  But that was after the original research
group's general move to VAXes--they had no PDP-11s left by then,
except a few LSI-11s running special-purpose systems rather than
UNIX.  In fact the VAX kernel they had adopted, I think sometime
earlier that year, was derived from that of 4.1 BSD.  (It diverged
quite a bit from that start later, for which I am appreciably
to blame, but that has nothing to do with #!).

So if #! was implemented in an earlier kernel I don't know just
what was done.  I'd assumed it was no different; if I'm
mistaken I'd love to see just how it really was.

Alas, the person I know was on the spot and was likely to
remember just what happened in what order can no longer answer
questions ...

Norman Wilson
Toronto ON



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