boreutils

An implementation of some of the utilities specified in POSIX.1-2017.

Excluded utilities

Boreutils focuses on non-optional utilities. Many POSIX utility categories and XSI (X/Open Systems Interfaces) utilities are excluded.

Things explicitly excluded include:

• Things that make more sense as shell builtins, including:
  • Things that are only really usable in a shell: cd, hash, read, etc.
  • Things related to job control: bg, fg, jobs, etc.
• Things used exclusively for printing: lp, etc.
• The following Margin Codes:
  • CD: C-Language Development Utilities
  • FD: FORTRAN Development Utilities
  • FR: FORTRAN Runtime Utilities
  • OB: Obsolescent
  • SD: Software Development Utilities
  • UU: UUCP Utilities
• Things that are very heavily influenced by software not in Boreutils, including:
  • Things that have terminal-specific behavior, like tput.

Things not excluded, but prone to be put off forever include:

• Things where the standard doesn't provide enough information:
  • mesg: "The mechanism by which the message status of the terminal is changed is unspecified"
• Things where there's no standard for the underlying functionality:
  • ps: On Linux, you read /proc. On BSD, you use kvm_getproc*(). Elsewhere? Who the heck knows.
• Obscenely complex things, such as those involving creating archives:
  • pax

Utilities, and current status

Below is the list of POSIX.1-2017 utilities that are planned to be implemented.

Utilities that are checked off have been implemented. Partial implementations have notes explaining what is missing and a link to GitHub issues.

• at
• awk
• basename
• batch
• bc
• cal (August 1752 and earlier is broken. GH#4)
• cat
• chgrp
• chmod
• chown
• cksum
• cmp
• comm
• cp
• crontab
• csplit
• cut
• date
• dd
• df
• diff
• dirname
• du
• echo
• ed
• env
• ex
• expand
• expr
• false
• file
• find
• fold
• gencat
• getconf
• getopts
• grep
• head
• iconv
• id
• join
• kill (kill -l EXIT_STATUS is unimplemented. GH#7)
• link
• ln
• locale
• localedef
• logger
• logname
• ls
• m4
• mailx
• make
• man (It's not very robust, and doesn't support -k. GH#8)
• mkdir
• mkfifo
• more
• mv
• newgrp
• nice
• nl
• nohup
• od
• paste
• patch
• pathchk
• pax
• pr
• printf
• ps
• pwd
• renice
• rm
• rmdir
• sed
• sh
• sleep
• sort
• split
• strings
• stty
• tabs
• tail
• talk
• tee
• test
• time
• touch
• tr
• true
• tsort
• tty
• umask
• uname
• unexpand
• uniq
• unlink
• uudecode
• uuencode
• vi
• wc
• xargs

Here are non-POSIX.1-2017 utilities which are provided:

• dir (an extremely basic ls alternative)
• ish (an extremely basic shell; not POSIX-compliant)
• which (no standard)
• whoami (no standard)
• yes (no standard)