sh vs. sh5 in ultrix

[rouben at math13.math.umbc.edu]

In a previous article Michael Meissner writes:
>> How common are sh's that don't understand shell functions?
>
> Anything that is BSD based without adding from System V.  For example,
> the Ultrix DECstation that I'm posting from has the musty BSD shell as
> /bin/sh and the System V.2 shell with shell functions as /bin/sh5.
> Another problem with the BSD shell Ultrix uses, is that test (aka '[')
> is a separate command that you have to fork/exec to get to -- I
> suspect echo is too.....

In spite of its shortcommings, ultrix's BSD sh beats sh5 in terms of 
efficiency.  On a DECstation5000, we have:
ls -l  /bin/sh  /usr/bin/sh5

-rwxr-xr-x  1 root     system      45056 Apr  1 12:27 /bin/sh
-rwxr-xr-x  2 root     system     163840 Apr  1 09:56 /usr/bin/sh5

So the executable for sh5 is more than three times larger than that
of sh.  For quick execution of simple tasks there is a sense of 
overkill in using sh5.  I guess that's the reason that the folks at
DEC have not replaced sh with sh5.

--
Rouben Rostamian                               Telephone: (301) 455-2458
Department of Mathematics and Statistics       e-mail:
University of Maryland Baltimore County        rostamian at umbc.bitnet
Baltimore, MD 21228,  U.S.A.                   rostamian at umbc3.umbc.edu