Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!helios.ee.lbl.gov!pasteur!ucbvax!husc6!psuvax1!gondor.cs.psu.edu!flee From: flee@gondor.cs.psu.edu (Felix Lee) Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions Subject: Shouting the return code. (Re: Meaning of "rc" in cron/log) Message-ID: <3671@psuvax1.cs.psu.edu> Date: 28 Jun 88 11:08:37 GMT References: <717@mccc.UUCP> <16377@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> Sender: news@psuvax1.cs.psu.edu Reply-To: flee@gondor.cs.psu.edu (Felix Lee) Distribution: na Organization: Penn State University Computer Science Lines: 13 Does ksh let you put the return code in the prompt? Something like PS1='($?) '? Showing only non-zero return codes would be better. Return codes are interesting. Really. IBM's VM/CMS will tell you about non-zero return codes. (The prompt is either 'R;' or 'R(nnn);') Unix hides return codes well. Ever try unconfusing someone about why "true" is "exit 0", but "false" is "exit 1"? Maybe if the shell shouted the return code, more programs would return interesting codes. (lament) Where are the return codes for fsck documented? Why does "strings" return -40? Why does "od" return 10? -- Felix Lee flee@gondor.cs.psu.edu *!psuvax1!gondor!flee