Scsh
Unix shell

Scsh (a Scheme shell) is command-line shell derived from Scheme 48, an implementation of the Scheme programming language. It turns common POSIX shell features (string processing, file-name matching, input/output redirection, etc.) into a Scheme application programming interface in a manner to make the most of Scheme's ability for scripting. It is free and open-source software released under the BSD-3-Clause license.
Scsh, in its original form (a Scheme 48 fork), is limited to 32-bit platforms. There is a development version in the form of a Scheme 48 library that works in 64-bit mode.
01Features
Scsh includes these notable features:
- A shell language, modeled using quasi-quotation;
- Library support for list, character, and string manipulations;
- Regular expressions manipulation support using scheme regular expressions, a domain-specific language (DSL), or little languages, approach to the abilities;
- High-level support for awk-like scripts, integrated into the language as macros;
- Full access to the POSIX API plus BSD sockets, resulting in strong networking support;
- Abstractions supporting pseudo terminals.
02Example
- Translation of the shell pipeline gunzip < paper.tex.gz | detex | spell | lpr -Ppulp &:
- Print a list of all the executables available in the current PATH to the standard output:
03"Acknowledgments"
The reference manual for Scsh includes a spoof Acknowledgments section written by Olin Shivers. It starts:
- Who should I thank? My so-called "colleagues", who laugh at me behind my back, all the while becoming famous on my work? My worthless graduate students, whose computer skills appear to be limited to downloading bitmaps off of netnews? My parents, who are still waiting for me to quit "fooling around with computers," go to med school, and become a radiologist? My department chairman, a manager who gives one new insight into and sympathy for disgruntled postal workers?
and concludes with:
- Oh, yes, the acknowledgements. I think not. I did it. I did it all, by myself.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Scsh”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Scsh logo.png by Unknown author, Fair use
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