Known Bugs

The csh shell is not without  bugs, and it helps to know about them. Since observing scripts currently run under pretty much generic csh, most of these bugs are reproducible on many machines. This list is not exhaustive or even near complete but you have been warned:

• The command following an if statement on the same line cannot be an alias. It is not expanded, and the shell will try to find a true executable, and normally complain ``command not found''.
• Perhaps not a bug but a feature, but aliases cannot span multiple lines if separated by the \ symbol. Although the alias command does appear to report the complete intended expanded command, during executing only the first defined line of the alias is executed. You need to use \\ at the end of the line, and no other characters may appear after that, it must be followed by a newline.
• Perhaps not so much a bug, but more a not widely known feature: shell scripts are interpreted, and a relatively small buffer (perhaps even one line) is kept in memory. Hence, if you edit a running script, unpredictable things may happen.
• [?] else clause embedded in an if causes if to end. SUN OS 4.1.3
• [?] if in a switch inside an if fails, missing endif. HP/UX 9.01