Jason McIntyre wrote (2022-11-20 21:45 CET): > On Sun, Nov 20, 2022 at 08:09:13PM +0100, Tomasz Rola wrote: > > On Sun, Nov 20, 2022 at 01:32:54PM -0000, Christian Weisgerber wrote: > > > On 2022-11-20, Reuben mac Saoidhea <ancatm...@outlook.com> wrote: > > > > > > >> It is a builtin, so it is documented inside ksh. > > > > > > > > i think the 4.3BSD manual allowed for example `man while' for `man sh'? > > > > > > FreeBSD has a builtin(1) man page that attempts to list the csh(1) > > > and sh(1) builtins and points to the respective man pages: > > > > > > https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=builtin > > > > > > It's an attempt to do something about this problem, but I think the > > > result isn't that great. > > > > I am writing this from ParrotOS (Debian derivative) and since I am > > avid user of bash, I can do "man bash-builtins" and it prints me a > > very nice looking summary. Bash package version is 5.1-2+deb11u1, > > which probably means 5.1 with some Debian-specific addons. > > > > the thing is, you have to be aware of a builtins page in order to know > to type "man builtins" (or whatever). you would need to know that a > command is a builtin. but if you know it's a builtin, then you can just > type "man ksh" and get the documentation. > > we could add all these commands to ksh's NAME, but that would look awful. > > i think it's just a case of we should expect people to familiarise > themselves with the shell they're using, and know to go digging there. > openbsd does not generally have undocumented commands, so it's all there > somewhere.
There are 4 things you can type into a shell: - executables (found along the path) - functions (defined by yourself [or the distribution]) - aliases (defined by yourself [or the distribution]) - builtins (comes with the shell) $ type type echo printf dgrep music_ambient ls type is a shell builtin echo is a shell builtin printf is /usr/bin/printf dgrep is a function music_ambient is an alias for 'mpg123 http://62.210.114.63:8002/listen.mp3' ls is a tracked alias for /bin/ls I think this is better than a manpage. If we provide two manpages, one for the builtin echo and one for /bin/echo, then you still don't know which one is actually used. bash: $ type printf printf is a shell builtin ksh: $ type printf printf is /usr/bin/printf Best Regards, Stefan
