Re: modules: shell portabililty?

[<ut...@in...>]

Hello Dave,

> As I'm new to Modules, I'm gratified to see that this list is alive.  

Yeah.  Mostly with people bitching that modules is seemingly
unsupported :-)

> So here's a question: Has anyone solved the problem of shell
> portability when writing aliases?

I thought so.

> For example, the way one sets the prompt is different in csh-type
> shells and in sh-type shells. So is the quoting behavior. This means
> that I end up saying stuff like this in my modulefiles: 
> 
> if { [ module-info shelltype ] == "csh" } {
> 	# csh (and tcsh etc) alias generation
> } else {
> 	# sh (and ksh and bash etc) alias / function generation
> }

Whats wrong with set-alias?  from the man-page (this is 
man modulefile):

       set-alias alias-name alias-string
              Sets  an alias or function with the name alias-name
              in the user's  environment  to  the  string  alias-
              string.   Arguments  can  be  specified  using  the
              Bourne Shell style of function arguments.   If  the
              string  contains  "$1",  then  this will become the
              first argument when the alias is interpreted by the
              shell.   The  string "$*" corresponds to all of the
              arguments given to the alias.   The  character  '$'
              may be escaped using the '\' character.

              For  some  shells, aliases are not possible and the
              command has no effect.  For Bourne shell derelicts,
              a  shell function will be written (if supported) to
              give the impression of an alias.  When a modulefile
              is unloaded, set-alias becomes unset-alias.

I have admittedly never tried it, but it sounds good, doesn't it?

Sven
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