MirBSD manpage: lksh(1)
LKSH(1) BSD Reference Manual LKSH(1)
NAME
lksh - Legacy Korn shell built on mksh
SYNOPSIS
lksh [-+abCefhiklmnprUuvXx] [-+o opt] [-c string | -s | file [args ...]]
DESCRIPTION
lksh is a command interpreter intended exclusively for running legacy
shell scripts. It is built on mksh; refer to its manual page for details
on the scripting language. It is recommended to port scripts to mksh in-
stead of relying on legacy or objectionable POSIX-mandated behaviour,
since the MirBSD Korn Shell scripting language is much more consistent.
Do not use lksh as an interactive or login shell; use mksh instead.
Note that it's strongly recommended to invoke lksh with -o posix to fully
enjoy better compatibility to the POSIX standard (which is probably why
you use lksh over mksh in the first place); -o sh (possibly additionally
to the above) may be needed for some legacy scripts.
LEGACY MODE
lksh currently has the following differences from mksh:
• The KSH_VERSION string identifies lksh as "LEGACY KSH" instead of
"MIRBSD KSH". Note that the rest of the version string is identical
between the two shell flavours, and the behaviour and differences can
change between versions; see the accompanying manual page mksh(1) for
the versions this document applies to.
• lksh uses POSIX arithmetic, which has quite a few implications: The
data type for arithmetic operations is the host ISO C long data type.
Signed integer wraparound is Undefined Behaviour; this means that...
$ echo $((2147483647 + 1))
... is permitted to, e.g. delete all files on your system (the figure
differs for non-32-bit systems, the rule doesn't). The sign of the
result of a modulo operation with at least one negative operand is
unspecified. Shift operations on negative numbers are unspecified.
Division of the largest negative number by -1 is Undefined Behaviour.
The compiler is permitted to delete all data and crash the system if
Undefined Behaviour occurs (see above for an example).
• The rotation arithmetic operators are not available.
• The shift arithmetic operators take all bits of the second operand
into account; if they exceed permitted precision, the result is un-
specified.
• Unless set -o posix is active, lksh always uses traditional mode for
constructs like:
$ set -- $(getopt ab:c "$@")
$ echo $?
POSIX mandates this to show 0, but traditional mode passes through
the errorlevel from the getopt(1) command.
• Functions defined with the function reserved word share the shell op-
tions (set -o) instead of locally scoping them.
SEE ALSO
mksh(1)
http://www.mirbsd.org/mksh.htm
http://www.mirbsd.org/ksh-chan.htm
CAVEATS
To use lksh as /bin/sh, compilation to enable set -o posix by default if
called as sh (adding -DMKSH_BINSHPOSIX to CPPFLAGS) is highly recommended
for better standards compliance.
For better compatibility with legacy scripts, such as many Debian main-
tainer scripts, Upstart and SYSV init scripts, and other unfixed scripts,
also adding the -DMKSH_BINSHREDUCED compile-time option to enable both
set -o posix -o sh when the shell is run as sh, as well as integrating
the optional disrecommended printf(1) builtin, might be necessary.
lksh tries to make a cross between a legacy bourne/posix compatibl-ish
shell and a legacy pdksh-alike but "legacy" is not exactly specified.
Talk to the MirBSD development team and users using the mailing list at
<miros-mksh@mirbsd.org> or in the #!/bin/mksh IRC channel; mind the infos
from http://www.mirbsd.org/mksh-faq.htm#contact for either. Consider mi-
grating your legacy scripts to work with mksh instead of requiring lksh.
MirBSD June 15, 2021 1