AmigaOS 3.1.4 withdrawn from market after Amiga

[McTrinsic]

Let me look into this and get back to you.

[kolla]

Originally Posted by jurassicman

I'm not aware of the technical aspects inside the Amiga Shell but yes, in the previous version I was able to execute two commands on the same line using "&&" and in fact I wrote a few scripts that did so and that now don't work anymore.

Yes, I also have been using it to execute multiple commands in one go, I just didn't recall whether they would be executed sequentially or not. But you are right, I just tested with shell 45.39 and pipe 1.5, and indeed the commands are executed sequentially, and results of one command is available for the next. So...

cd sys: || list || set blbl haha || echo $blbl

will with old shell list content of sys: and echo "haha", while with v46 it will list current directory and echo the string "$blbl". That's rather drastic change of behavior.

I've also faced the "CONSOLE" request running one of them and I "fixed" that with a silly assign on my startup-sequence

Assign >NIL: CONSOLE: DH0:

I know it's just a workaround but I really don't know a better solution.

i wonder what is now written to your dh0: partition I have not gone to this lenght, but would rather assign to something harmless, like RAM:

Btw, a rather silly work-around for the FailAt bug is to not use FailAt, and instead use a variable which one the compare $RC against and bail out using Break command...

Set _FAILAT 10
Command1
If ${RC} GT ${_FAILAT}
 Break ${process}
EndIf
Command2
If ${RC} GT ${_FAILAT}
 Break ${process}
EndIf
... etc

If I was ThoR and Olsen, I would have insisted that the initial OS 3.1.4 release was a download only "public release candidate", and give that a few months run in the community, with good time for feedback and bug fixing before shipping any hardware ROM kickstarts.

I get the impression that releasing on physical media was something Hyperion was very eager to push through on, probably in order to establish this illusion of ownership through delivering something...

[jurassicman]

Originally Posted by kolla

i wonder what is now written to your dh0: partition I have not gone to this lenght, but would rather assign to something harmless, like RAM:

You are right, I'll do that but I haven't noticed anything written on DH0:



As per the pipe, your example shows exactly the new behaviour compared with the old one.

[malko]

Originally Posted by Mr.Flibble

I think it's referring to this: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BxlY...0M2I4MzQ1/edit

The language is rather confusing and we probably haven't a hope of properly understanding it without a law degree...

Oh thanks
You are right. Anyway, will take time for a reading during the week.

[AMIGASYSTEM]

And normal that with 3.1.4 a startup-sequence does not stop even in the presence of an incorrect command (file is missing)

[Thomas Richter]

First of all, let me say that I am sorry that I missed a bug in the shell, despite testing. One error condition is not properly propagated up-level. Strangely, this was not detected during testing, which still astonishes me given that the shell was under test for quite a while.

However, there are otherwise many misconceptions here, and Kolla is (as usual) just making a rumble for the purpose of making a rumble.

First, why is "Pipe" gone, and why is the syntax frozen:

This is quite simple: The shell syntax is complicated enough as it is, such that it is already almost impossible to parse it correctly. Pipe (and Execute as well) did second-level parsing of the syntax, introducing the chance of parsing failures or parsing the awkward syntax incorrectly. Depending on external components to get things right is not a good idea, even more so as the shell syntax may slightly change over time, and that components must then be updated accordingly - which will then cause another confusion, for example if people miss updates or install "popular third party contributions" instead of original components. Where is the Os 3.1 version of Pipe? Right, there is none. For a reason.

In particular, _mchar and _pchar even allowed to make the shell-syntax dynamic, i.e. change within a script. If you think about the consequences, then that means that the "passive parsing" execute has to do can no longer work robustly as execute would need to adapt its own parser according to shell variables of a script it does not yet execute, but rather pre-parses. This is a nightmare to get right, and to update. Execute is already a nightmare. Just to let you know: Execute does, despite its name, not execute anything. It just creates a temporary file in T: from a parsing a script, and then let the shell execute it. Tripos at its greatest.

Second, please note that "Pipe" was undocumented for a reason, and not part of 3.1 for a reason. This was an experimental feature that was never suited for production use, and if you depend on undocumented features, then you depend on a volantile feature. Things do change, yes.

Third, unlike what people assume, || is not a boolean operator and not a look-alike of the "bash" operators || and &&. Instead, it is the concatenation operator, from ARexx. The left-hand side is executed in a side-shell, and then concatenated to the output of the right-hand side. That is, || is a form of a pipe, and not a form of a boolean operator. As such, it does not propagade shell-internals forwards, same as | does not propagade shell internals forward.

Think about constructions like a || b | c. If "a" modifies a shell-private such as the current directory, should this affect c? And how is this chain understood in first place? Is this "execute a, then execute b pipe into c", or is it "execute a, and b, then pipe the output of both into c"?

The v46 shell ensures that this expression is evaluated "left to right", that is, the output of a and b joined together go into c, i.e. the last interpretation. Note that this is different from bash, and different from &&. Don't confuse bash syntax with shell syntax.

What "pipe" did - well, it pretty much depended on which pipe implementation you used. There is, unlike other claims, no "standard". I don't even remember which of the two interpretations pipe picked.

Then, NIL: redirection and & contain a bug as it goes with a 0 console-handler into an open for "CONSOLE:" which triggers a requester. This is, however, an old bug from the V45 shell (Os 3.9). Nobody ever noticed, apparently, so it is a bit late to complain about it. So, again, unlike claimed, there was "community testing", just that the community failed to detect an issue. Happens, of course.

Will this be fixed? Of course it will. There will be an update, tentatively scheduled for Q1 2019, but as always, it will be ready when it will be ready. According to my information, this will be a free update for 3.1.4 owners.

Last but not least: I am really tired of this "Hyperion has no licence" discussion. Go into the settlement agreement, check what it says, and note that "AmigaOs 4" is defined as "The operating system developed by Hyperion, irrespectively its version number". Hence, as far as the legal issues are concerned, "Os 3.1.4" is "Amiga Os 4". That Cloanto makes a big rumble about it is quite natural - their sales are going down, and it is part of the "dirty play" that is going on in the market - actually from both sides.

Then, a final point: I am even more tired about people like Kolla that complain whenever they can - people that contribute nothing, and are not willing to be helpful. Kolla complained about the Norsk localization - probably rightfully so, I cannot judge - but was not willing to provide fixes either.

Don't listen to such people. Everything will be cared for, sooner or later, but things will take a while. There are only few people that work on this, there is lots of work to do, sometimes things do go wrong, but that is all human. The day has only 24 hours, including a 9h/day full-time job for me, so please have some patience. We do care. But not about nay-sayers and complainers and trolls.

I know that this post will trigger just another troll attack of Kolla. Ignore him. I just don't want to let things stand as incorrect as they are.

[kolla]

I never said I am not willing to do Norwegian locales, on the contrary. What I have said is that I am not willing to sign any NDA with Hyperion. Send me .ct and.cd files, and I will give you locales for both bokmål and nynorsk, I already have them ready, mostly working, by using CatEdit, and binary editing language files.

[kolla]

The big question is how you will fix bugs that affect all kickstarts chips that are currently sold.

[Daedalus]

Originally Posted by kolla

The big question is how you will fix bugs that affect all kickstarts chips that are currently sold.

The same way Commodore fixed bugs in pretty much any other version of Kickstart that's been released on a chip?

[kolla]

Originally Posted by Daedalus

The same way Commodore fixed bugs in pretty much any other version of Kickstart that's been released on a chip?

So a new SetPatch. And if that SetPatch fails for whatever reasons, startup-sequence just rolls on. And instead of having experimental updates steadily landing on aminet, OS3 is now caught in the same trap as OS4.

[Ami]

@Thomas Richter

I've found another issue with new Shell, please read this post http://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p=...&postcount=360.

[Daedalus]

Yep, either that or the new SetPatch handles that particular situation differently as a special case. Seems reasonable to me.

[kolla]

Originally Posted by Daedalus

Yep, either that or the new SetPatch handles that particular situation differently as a special case. Seems reasonable to me.

So SetPatch shall handle the special case when SetPatch fails. Assuring.

[Daedalus]

If SetPatch is running well enough to issue a return code, it's running well enough to handle such a special case.

[kolla]

Originally Posted by Daedalus

If SetPatch is running well enough to issue a return code, it's running well enough to handle such a special case.

So what should SetPatch do in such cases? Refuse to exit, and just hang there? Guru? Patch the shell regardless and exit?

[SpeedGeek]

Originally Posted by Mr.Flibble

Correct because it's a filing to the court from the Amiga companies + Cloanto against Hyperion, the Judge will then read and take action accordingly, although there may be additional filings between both sides before anything happens, but at a minimum you should get a response from Hyperion before anything happens.

Back to topic, there may be a hint on how Judge Martinez will rule on the PI (if you read between the lines) of his most recent ruling:

Based on the stipulation of the Parties, the Court finds good cause exists to grant the Parties’ request to reorganize the Parties’ positions to reflect Cloanto Corporation, Amiga, Inc., Itec, LLC, and Amino Development Corporation as Plaintiffs, and Hyperion Entertainment CVBA as Defendant. The Court further grants Plaintiffs leave to file their proposed Second Amended Complaint, Dkt. #44-2. Hyperion Entertainment CVBA shall respond to Plaintiffs’ Second Amended Complaint within 14-days after service thereof, but no earlier than January 4, 2019.

[Daedalus]

Originally Posted by kolla

So what should SetPatch do in such cases? Refuse to exit, and just hang there? Guru? Patch the shell regardless and exit?

What do you think it should do? Since it's such a massive deal for you, I suspect you want it to exit to a prompt, so you can fix the problem by hand. In that case, suspending the current Shell process to prevent further execution of the startup-sequence seems the appropriate way to handle it, and giving an error message and the option of spawning a new Shell process will give you another prompt so that you can fix it. Of course, that's just a 30-second idea off the top of my head, and I'm not one of the developers, so I'm sure other approaches could be made too. But personally, I really don't see what the massive fuss is about, other than making a lot of noise because Bad Hyperion.

[malko]

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

[...] Will this be fixed? Of course it will. There will be an update, tentatively scheduled for Q1 2019, but as always, it will be ready when it will be ready. According to my information, this will be a free update for 3.1.4 owners.

[Thomas Richter]

Originally Posted by Daedalus

If SetPatch is running well enough to issue a return code, it's running well enough to handle such a special case.

Indeed. SetPatch is smart enough to replace the running shell under its feed. It's a nice trick I came up with - and it is not even a hack, just some internals on how to spawn shells.

[Thomas Richter]

Originally Posted by Ami

@Thomas Richter

I've found another issue with new Shell, please read this post http://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p=...&postcount=360.

Please do not post issues into the wild wild net. They will be lost. The proper place is here:

http://forum.hyperion-entertainment.com/