[Bug 1366451] Re: "mksh -v" should display mksh's version number, plus the attached chunk of text, onscreen

[Thorsten Glaser]

> mirabilos, I wonder if you might be willing to please put some shell
function like this into the dot.mkshrc in upstream mksh CVS?

I’m not.

> It seems to me a fairly uncontroversial change.

No. As I said, “help” is very generic, and I know of distros aliasing it to “man” or “man man”. (SuSE 6.1 did that, for example.)
Also, generic names are… problematic. I’ve learned my lesson from when I added a “rename” builtin.

> Then, next time you push the latest mksh version into Android gerrit,
perhaps you could include this change as part of the broader changelist.

Android mkshrc is independent of mksh/dot.mkshrc and completely
separately maintained.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1366451

Title:
  "mksh -v" should display mksh's version number, plus the attached
  chunk of text, onscreen

Status in The MirBSD Korn Shell:
  Opinion
Status in “mksh” package in Ubuntu:
  Opinion
Status in “mksh” package in Debian:
  Opinion

Bug description:
  It's customary in the Unix world that "-v" or "--version" displays a
  program's version. If someone is logged into an Android device, you
  want to make it easy for them to find out which shell is installed.
  How can you do this? One way is to offer a "-v" option which will tell
  them the answer (and will also tell them mksh's version number).

  May I suggest that, if the user runs "mksh -v", then mksh should echo
  the following to stdout, after which it should immediately exit.

  --- cut here ---
  mksh R50b+cvs
  This is mksh, the MirBSD Korn Shell.

  Homepage:  <http://mirbsd.de/mksh>.

  Copyright (C) 2002-2014 Thorsten Glaser.
  This is open-source software; see <https://www.mirbsd.org/TaC-mksh.txt> for copying conditions.

  This work is provided "AS IS" and WITHOUT WARRANTY of any kind, to
  the utmost extent permitted by applicable law, neither express nor
  implied; without malicious intent or gross negligence.

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