Problem with shell() and 1.3B1

Scott Raney ((no email))
Tue, 16 Nov 93 17:21:50 MST

A few people have reported problems with the new shell() function in
1.3B1. The symptom is that MetaCard sometimes hangs when executing a
shell command. A common place for this to occur is when opening the
license form.

The problem is most likely to occur when using a shell built-in
function (e.g. echo), and is related to the time it takes for the
shell to exit: if it exits before the main process gets a chance to
run, MetaCard loses track of the process.

You can interrupt the shell function when this happens by pressing
control-C (which will interrupt any running script, BTW), and can work
around the problem in the short term by putting a delay into the shell
command, e.g.:
put shell("sleep 1; echo $HOME")

This is a common enough problem that we'll be rebuilding *all* of the
engines this weekend when we do the HP9K700, 88open and Sun3 builds,
and will be updating the version to Beta 2. Look for it Monday the
22nd.

This is the only announcement you'll get (from us, anyway). We
apologize for any inconvenience.
Scott

-- 
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* Scott Raney  303-447-3936            Remember: the better you look, *
* raney@metacard.com                   the more you'll see -- Lidia   *
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