BASH 4.2.39 available for OpenVMS.

Bash 4.2.39 is the current release and patch level of the GNU bash 
project and is now available for OpenVMS.

Items of specific interest to the to the VMS Perl community are:

Recent versions of Perl will go into a UNIX mode when run under Bash 
4.2.39.  This support of GNV is not 100 % complete at this time, but 
quite a few things are functional.  The partial support has been in Perl 
since about Perl 5.12.x.  Some portions may have been implemented earlier.

To run Perl under GNV, place the following 2 line file in GNV$GNU:[usr.bin]

Do not use any other hacks like copying portions of perl into the 
GNV$GNU: directory tree.

$ type gnv$gnu:[usr.bin]perl.
#! /bin/sh
/perl_root/perl $*

If you do not have privilege to copy files into gnv$gnu:[usr.bin], you 
can set up a concealed logical name old_gnu to point to the same 
concealed rooted directory as gnv$gnu: and a logical name new_gnu: to a 
directory that you have write access to.  Use the job table to speed up 
subprocess creation.

EAGLE> show log gnv$gnu
    "GNV$GNU" = "new_gnu:" (LNM$JOB_821217C0)
         = "old_gnu:"
1  "NEW_GNU" = "EAGLE$DQA0:[alpha_root.new_gnv.]" (LNM$JOB_821217C0)
1  "OLD_GNU" = "DISK$BIGDISK:[VMS$COMMON.GNV.]" (LNM$JOB_821217C0)
    "GNV$GNU" = "DISK$BIGDISK:[VMS$COMMON.GNV.]" (LNM$SYSTEM_TABLE)


Perl since 5.12.x also supports running scripts on VMS with "shbangs" in 
them, that is like "#! /usr/bin/perl " or "#! /usr/sh" in them.

I have not yet attempted to run the Perl configure script under Bash 4.2.39.


It is recommended that you read the release notes before installation or 
immediately after installation to make sure that the new version is used 
by GNV.

You should install this kit on the same disk that GNV was installed on.

If you have installed GNV which sets up a POSIX root, if you are not 
running the GNV startup procedure, the [vms$common.gnv.bin] directory 
will not be set up, and this will cause problems with installing other 
kits.  Hopefully that issue will be fixed in a future GNV kit.

If you installed the Bash 1.14.8 kit separate from GNV, it will have to 
be uninstalled before this kit can be installed because the producer is 
now GNV.

Pre-built PCSI kits are at:

  ftp://encompasserve.org/gnv/axp0830/   Alpha 8.3 kits
  ftp://encompasserve.org/gnv/axp0840/   Alpha 8.4 kits
  ftp://encompasserve.org/gnv/i640840/   Itanium 8.4 kits

Kits are planned to be in at the GNV project at sourceforge.net download 
section in the future.

Regards,
-John
[email protected]
Personal Opinion Only