Tag: ksh

Beware “No such file or directory” error in using ksh

Check following simple script:

#!/usr/bbin/python
print("hello world!")

I misspelled python path intentionally. On Linux Bash, it reported following error:

$ ./hello.py
-bash: ./hello.py: /usr/bbin/python: bad interpreter: No such file or directory

It prompted me that “/usr/bbin/python” couldn’t be found. While on OpenBSD ksh:

$ ./hello.py
ksh: ./hello.py: No such file or directory

It gave an illusion that hello.py didn’t exist. So be careful about this error information if you use ksh.

Customize ksh display for OpenBSD

The default shell for OpenBSD is ksh, and it looks a little monotonous:

1

To make its user-experience more friendly, I need to do some customizations:

(1) Modify the “Prompt String” to display the user name and current directory:

PS1='$USER:$PWD# '

(2) Install colorls package:

# pkg_add colorls

Use it to replace the shipped ls command:

alias ls='colorls -G'

(3) Change LSCOLORS environmental variable to make your favorite color. For example, I don’t want the directory is displayed in default blue, change it to magenta:

LSCOLORS=fxexcxdxbxegedabagacad

For detailed explanation of LSCOLORS, please refer manual of colorls:

# man colorls
......
LSCOLORS        The value of this variable describes what color to use
                     for which attribute when colors are enabled with
                     CLICOLOR.  This string is a concatenation of pairs of the
                     format fb, where f is the foreground color and b is the
                     background color.

                     The color designators are as follows:

                           a     black
                           b     red
......

This is my final modification of .profile:

......
PS1='$USER:$PWD# '
export PS1
LSCOLORS=fxexcxdxbxegedabagacad
export LSCOLORS
alias ls='colorls -G'
......

And this is the final effect:

Capture
References:
Add Color to Your Terminal;
Why doesn’t alias work in AIX (Korn shell, .profile)?;
ksh.kshrc.