Beyond Linux® From Scratch - Version 2012-01-16

Chapter 7. Shells

Tcsh-6.17.00

Introduction to Tcsh

The Tcsh package contains “an enhanced but completely compatible version of the Berkeley Unix C shell (csh)”. This is useful as an alternative shell for those who prefer C syntax to that of the bash shell, and also because some programs require the C shell in order to perform installation tasks.

Package Information

User Notes: http://wiki.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/wiki/tcsh

Installation of Tcsh

Install Tcsh by running the following commands: 

sed -i -e 's|\$\*|#&|' -e 's|fR/g|&m|' tcsh.man2html &&
./configure --prefix=/usr --bindir=/bin &&
make &&
sh ./tcsh.man2html

The test suite is known to completely fail with GNU M4-1.4.14 as installed in LFS. There is one failure (#120) when using an older version of M4. To try to run the checks anyway, issue: make check.

Now, as the root user: 

make install install.man &&
ln -v -sf tcsh   /bin/csh &&
ln -v -sf tcsh.1 /usr/share/man/man1/csh.1 &&
install -v -m755 -d          /usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.17.00/html &&
install -v -m644 tcsh.html/* /usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.17.00/html &&
install -v -m644 FAQ         /usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.17.00

Command Explanations

sed -i -e 's|\$\*|#&|' -e 's|fR/g|&m|' tcsh.man2html: This updates some deprecated Perl code.

--bindir=/bin: This installs the tcsh program in /bin instead of /usr/bin.

sh ./tcsh.man2html: This creates HTML documentation from the formatted man page.

ln -v -sf tcsh /bin/csh: The FHS states that if there is a C shell installed, there should be a symlink from /bin/csh to it. This creates that symlink.

Configuring Tcsh

Config Files

There are numerous configuration files for the C shell. Examples of these are /etc/csh.cshrc, /etc/csh.login, /etc/csh.logout, ~/.tcshrc, ~/.cshrc, ~/.history, ~/.cshdirs, ~/.login, and ~/.logout. More information on these files can be found in the tcsh(1) man page.

Configuration Information

Update /etc/shells to include the C shell program names (as the root user): 

cat >> /etc/shells << "EOF"
/bin/tcsh
/bin/csh
EOF

Contents

Installed Program: tcsh
Installed Libraries: None
Installed Directory: /usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.17.00

Short Descriptions

tcsh

is an enhanced but completely compatible version of the Berkeley Unix C shell, csh. It is usable as both an interactive shell and a script processor.

Last updated on 2010-03-07 18:31:10 +0000