Choosing a file in Korn shell

[ddrillich]

Good Day,

I'm using the Korn shell, doing the following:

$ set -o vi
$ ls lo
Followed by ESC =

The shell displays:
1) local.cshrc
2) local.login
3) local.profile

How can I choose, let's say, the second option? My book says that 2 = will complete the command with the second option, but it isn't happening.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Dan

 

[KenCunningham]

What do you mean by 'choose'? Do you want to run local.login? Sorry if I've misunderstood the question.

 

[ddrillich]

Hi Ken,

I mean that the shell will complete the command to be:
$ ls local.login

Thanks,
Dan

 

[KenCunningham]

Sorry, Dan, I've been unable to do this successfully either. It might be a pain, but would it be possible to transcribe what your book has to say about this exactly? Would be interested to hear other views/opinions.

 

[ddrillich]

Hi Ken,

The book is "Korn Shell" from O'Reilly

http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/korn2/index.html#top.

It says on page 58:

Finally, the command = does the same kind of filename expansion as the * shell wildcard, but in a different way. Instead of expanding the filenames onto the command line, it prints them in a numbered list with one filename on each line. Then it gives you your shell prompt back and retypes whatever was on your command line before you typed =. For example, if the files in your directory include program.c and problem.c, and you type pro followed by ESC and then =, you will see this:

$ cc pro ESC = typed at this point
1) problem.c
2) program.c

$ cc pro

Beginning with ksh93m, prefixing the = command with a count indicates selection of a particular option. Returning to the previous example: after listing both program.c and problem.c, the command line looks like this:

$ cc pro

If you want program.c, it's enough to type 2 =, and the shell picks expansion number 2. The command line changes to:

$ cc program.c


Ok, so it's clear that this feature is available since ksh93m. How do I find out which Korn shell version is being invoked?

Thanks,
Dan

 

[KenCunningham]

Dan, that's probably the key issue here, and I'm afraid I don't know!! However, my guess is that earlier versions of Solaris wouldn't be ksh93m compatible. No doubt someone else will know....