Re: QShell vs. PASE vs. QP2TERM -- MIDRANGE-L

Aaron,

QShell is a collection of native *PGM objects that are intended to look and act like Unix. They are ordinary ILE programs written (primarily) in ILE C. You could potentially call the QShell tools from CL using the CALL command (but I wouldn't recommend it, since they may be expecting some of QShell's services to be active.)

PASE is an environment that runs programs that were compiled for AIX (IBM's flavor of Unix.) AIX is designed for the IBM System p (aka RS/6000, or pSeries) line of computers which is built in the same plant using very similar hardware to the System i. The hardware between these systems is virtually the same, but the operating system is very, very different. PASE attempts to bridge the software gap, letting you run programs compiled for AIX under i5/OS.

So, yes, there are two Unix-like environments, and they work very differently.

For example, you can write your own QShell tools in RPG (or any other HLL). However, you can't write your own PASE tools this way, you'd have to use a language supported on AIX and compile it with an AIX compiler.

The Korn, Bourne and C Shell refers to different shells that run under PASE. All of them are PASE, none are QShell. Basically, they're different command-line interpreters with different capabilities and different scripting languages. Unix people like choices :) But they're all PASE, and they run the same programs... the command-line syntax is just slightly different.

QShell, on the other hand, is not part of PASE. It's yet another shell, it's modelled after some combination of the Bourne and Korn shells, but it's not exactly the same as either one... it's it's own unique entity.

Aaron Bartell wrote:

In my efforts to get my 'sed' script to run fast I thought I would open a
PASE terminal session using CALL QP2TERM which brings up a different shell
than STRQSH, and SURPRISE! - the sed script ran at the speed I was
expecting.

So here's my question: Are there _two_ separate pseudo *nix environments on
the iSeries? Using STRQSH (or QSH CMD(.) from RPG) my results were VERY
slow. Doing the EXACT same sed statement in CALL QP2TERM session was 1/10th
the time of execution, which is the amount of time I was expecting.

For an immediate fix to my needs I am looking to use Qp2RunPase from my RPG
to run the sed command. But I still have a nagging question in my mind as
to how everything on the *nix side relates to each other. From the
infocenter I found this sentence that sort of gives an idea to the overall
infrastructure, but not entirely:

" OS/400 PASE also includes the Korn, Bourne, and C shells and nearly 200
utilities that provide a powerful scripting environment." -
http://www.esyurl.com/2m0

As I understand it, Korn=QP2TERM and C Shells=QShell, is that right?

TIA,

Aaron Bartell

http://mowyourlawn.com