Hi

I've got a problem with a shell script under Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5. Essentially it is to so with the max integer length that typeset -i can cope with. The script has worked fine in the past but with ksh-20100202-1 the max integer is massively smaller than before.

For example:

[root@linux1 ~]# rpm -qa | grep ksh
ksh-20060214-1.4
[root@linux1 ~]# ksh
# typeset -i a=1234567890123456789
# echo $a
1234567890123456789

[root@linux9 tmp]# rpm -qa | grep ksh
ksh-20100202-1.el5
[root@linux9 tmp]# ksh
# typeset -i a=1234567890123456789
# echo $a
2112454933

The max size for ksh-20100202-1.el5 is 2147483647 (which matches the INT_MAX parameter):

#rpm -qa | grep ksh
ksh-20100202-1.el5
# getconf INT_MAX
2147483647
# typeset -i a=2147483647
# echo $a
2147483647
# set -o vi
# typeset -i a=2147483648
# echo $a
-2147483648

However on ksh-20060214-1.4:
[root@linux1 ~]# rpm -qa | grep ksh
ksh-20060214-1.4
[root@linux1 ~]# ksh
# typeset -i a=2147483647
# echo $a
2147483647
# set -o vi
# typeset -i a=2147483648
# echo $a
2147483648

Anyone have any ideas why this has changed? I copied the ksh-20060214-1.4 version of ksh onto the other server and it runs fine which suggests its the way ksh-20100202-1.el5 has been compiled rather than an environmental issue.

Anyway of forcing ksh to accept a larger max int value?

Thanks

Hi,

In case anyone's interested I've got an update back from OEL support regarding this issue:

"I made some tests, seems the behavior of "typeset -i" changed between ksh-2006 and ksh-2008.

In ksh-2006, the variable value setting by "typeset -i" could reach to "long" not the "int".

The behavior changed between ksh-20060214-1.7 and ksh-20080202-2.

# getconf -a|grep LONG
LONG_BIT 64
ULONG_MAX 18446744073709551615

# bc
bc 1.06
Copyright 1991-1994, 1997, 1998, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
For details type `warranty'.
18446744073709551615/2
9223372036854775807
quit

# rpm -q ksh
ksh-20060214-1.7

# ksh
# typeset -i a=9223372036854775807
# echo $a
9223372036854775807
# typeset -i a=9223372036854775808
# echo $a
-9223372036854775808

Although the changelog does not show anything between ksh-2006 and ksh-2008, but I assume/believe it is a bug in ksh-2006 and has been fixed in ksh-2008 and later."

Looks like I'm going to have to do some recoding!