CS 1206: Assignment 2

Due Friday, July 19, 1999 by 5pm

100 Points

Customizing Your Shell

Your assignment is to customize the behavior of ksh, your login shell, to your personal taste. The assignment has 3 parts.

Part I: The Ksh Man Page And Your Configuration

Read the man page for ksh. The man page explains all of the features supported by the shell, and also documents the various shell variables that tailor the behavior of ksh.

Then examine the ``.profile'' and ``.kshrc'' files in your home directory. See which shell variables are set or altered by these files, and make sure that you understand what behavior these settings change. Also notice the aliases that are created for you in the default setup of your account.

Part II: Customization

Pick at least TEN different aspects of ksh's behavior that you can alter by setting or changing the values of shell variables. Modify your startup files so that your customizations will take effect each time you login. If you need suggestions, look at the ksh man page on-line; it includes an alphabetical list of all shell variables that affect its behavior. At least FIVE of the shell variables that you change have to be ones that don't exist in your .profile file currently.

In addition to setting shell variables, make at least FIVE new command aliases to use as shorthand abbreviations for commands. Pick aliases that you believe will be personally useful.

Part III: Submitting Your Answers

Your submission must be plain ASCII text that contains the following:

A plain ASCII writeup describing each shell variable or keybinding you modified. Describe the purpose of the modification, how the behavior of the shell differs as a result, and which startup file you placed it in and why. Similarly describe each command alias you added.
At the end of your message, include a copy of each startup file that you modified. If you include more than one file, be sure to clearly mark where each file begins and ends. If you are using Pine to submit your email Ctrl-R will help you in inserting files from your directory in the body of your message.

You are to hand in your assignment by emailing your assignment to cs1206@ei.cs.vt.edu with "HW 2" as the subject of your message. You should immediately get an acknowledgement back.

Also, remember that no late assignments are accepted.