Bash 4.2.39 now available for OpenVMS Alpha/I64

[John E. Malmberg]

Bash 4.2.39 is now available for OpenVMS.

Pre-built PCSI kits are at:

 ftp://encompasserve.org/gnv/axp0830/   Alpha 8.3 kits
 ftp://encompasserve.org/gnv/axp0840/   Alpha 8.4 kits
 ftp://encompasserve.org/gnv/i640840/   Itanium 8.4 kits

The kits include the source code and build procedures.

This version does not support Job Control as that can not be easily 
implemented on OpenVMS at this time.

Coprocess and network socket support were not implemented in this 
release to save time in debugging and testing.  It is not known how hard 
it will be to implement these features.

The Bash 1.14.8 port to OpenVMS was originally done by Douglas B. Rupp, 
and at some time in past was added to the sourceforge GNV project.

As this Port is not the same as a GNU bash build, the release notes are 
directing users to reproduce their bugs on a Linux build of bash before 
reporting it to the bash-bugs e-mail address.  The bashbug script was 
not provided as with these kits as it could not be made to run on 
OpenVMS due to issues with the native VMS editors.

OpenVMS specific bugs should be reported to the tracker at 
https://sourceforge.net/projects/gnv/

The build procedure only uses tools that are either supplied by OpenVMS 
free for Hobbyist or Alliance One use, or can easily be obtained 
pre-built for OpenVMS.  This is to allow building the initial GNU set of 
GNU tools with out having a copy of them already implemented.

The building procedure uses search lists, support routines, and TPU 
editing scripts, which makes it easier to keep the OpenVMS releases 
current with the GNU releases.

Now that I have a working release, I would like to know if it is 
possible to get the changes and code needed for building Bash on OpenVMS 
into the GNU bash repository.

The OpenVMS port, including the code needed to build PCSI kits (RPM 
equivalent) has 80 modules in it.  12 of those are TPU editor scripts.

Most of the TPU editor scripts are to compensate for for OpenVMS not 
having a fork() call, to insert code to save and restore selected Bash 
variables.  Also there are some differences in how I/O is done that 
required a source change.

That algorithm was based on the older Bash 1.14.8 port of Bash which as 
near as I can tell was based on GNU Bash 1.14.7 support for MS-DOS, 
which also does not have a fork.

Some TPU scripts are used to fix minor issues with the port, such as 
bashline.c not using the a header file for tputs() and a different 
definition than what was needed for OpenVMS in lib readline.

If the end result of the script is acceptable for checking into the 
source, then checking in the TPU script would not be needed.

I have not been able to determine how to pull down the periodic tarballs 
from the bash source repository to attempt building them on VMS. 
Currently I am not sure of how functional the Bison port on VMS is, so I 
can not directly build from the repository.  The autoconfigure step 
probably will not run on OpenVMS either.

For those that want to look at the source, you can examine or check out 
the OpenVMS specific changes in the http://gnv.cvs.sourceforge.net/gnv/ 
cvs tree from the gnu_vms/bash tree with the cvs tag 
gnv-bash-V0402-39e0.  At this time that is the same as latest version of 
the files.

These changes are done in conjunction with the actual GNU bash sources, 
a copy of these are in cvs for GNV project in the gnu/bash tree with the 
cvs tag gnv-bash-V0402-39e0.

While it should be possible to modify the build procedure to build on 
VAX/VMS, this has not been attempted yet.  The major issue is that the 
VAX/VMS filesystem does not support some of the file names as-is in the 
GNU source tree, so some special case code will be need in the Bash.mms 
(VMS makefile equivalent).

Regards,
-John
wb8tyw@qsl.net
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