Why was this change made to ksh

[Lawrence V. Cipriani]

Why does ksh [Version M-12/28/93e-SCO] print:

-ksh: /users/oracle/bin/blob-ksh: : cannot execute [I/O error]

instead of this [version of sh/ksh and UNIX I've used until now]:

ksh: blob: not found

when a non-existent command called blob is executed.

The new error message is so stupid I cannot believe it.
What possessed anyone to make this change ?
--
Lawrence V. Cipriani, l...@lucent.com, Lucent Technologies Inc.

[Lawrence V. Cipriani]

In article <7u4lm1$e...@nntpb.cb.lucent.com>,

Lawrence V. Cipriani <l...@lucent.com> wrote:
>Why does ksh [Version M-12/28/93e-SCO] print:
>
> -ksh: /users/oracle/bin/blob-ksh: : cannot execute [I/O error]
>
>instead of this [version of sh/ksh and UNIX I've used until now]:
>
> ksh: blob: not found
>
>when a non-existent command called blob is executed.
>
>The new error message is so stupid I cannot believe it.
>What possessed anyone to make this change ?

The guilty party is actually UNIXWARE 7.1.0 which is setting errno
to EIO in the lxstat system call. Prior versions of UNIXWARE set
errno to ENOENT. The lxstat sets errno to EIO since a directory
in my $PATH does not exist.

I use the same login environment [and files] on 6 different machines,
so either I customize PATH for every machine or live with this stupid
error message. Sigh.

[Clarence Dold]

In comp.unix.unixware.misc Lawrence V. Cipriani <l...@cbgbcs.lucent.com> wrote:
: Why does ksh [Version M-12/28/93e-SCO] print:

: -ksh: /users/oracle/bin/blob-ksh: : cannot execute [I/O error]

: instead of this [version of sh/ksh and UNIX I've used until now]:

: ksh: blob: not found

: when a non-existent command called blob is executed.

Is it a non-existent command, or is it an NFS directory in your PATH that's
no longer available? What does "type blob" say about the command?
If it's a command that it found once during this shell execution, but now
it can't find it because mount points have come and gone, the newer message
is probably "better".

It still beats Charles Rivers Data version of unix, with it's friendly
interface, which spouted an entire explanation about mispelled names and
the importance of PATH with every errant command, made worse by the
renaming of commands like ls to something more friendly ;-)

--
---
Clarence A Dold - do...@network.rahul.net
- Pope Valley & Napa CA.