.TH SHELL 1L
''' $Id: shell.man,v 3.0.3.3 1993/08/25 17:05:00 ram Exp $
'''
''' $Log: shell.man,v $
''' Revision 3.0.3.3  1993/08/25  17:05:00  ram
''' patch12: cleanup checkin for RCS 5.6
'''
''' Revision 3.0.3.2  91/04/07  18:51:54  ram
''' patch1: merged official cshar 3.0 into beta version
''' 
''' Revision 3.0.3.1  91/01/21  11:38:20  ram
''' 3.0 baseline (ram).
''' 
'''
.SH NAME
shell \- Interpreter for shell archives
.SH SYNOPSIS
.RS
.na
.ti -.5i
.B shell
[
.B \-v
] [ file [parameters] ]
.ad
.RE
.SH DESCRIPTION
This program interprets enough
.IR /bin/sh (1)
syntax, and common command usage, to enable it to unpack many different
types of
.\" NOSTRICT "Unmatched .SM"
.SM UNIX
shell archives,
or ``shar's.''
It is primarily intended to be used on non-UNIX systems that need to
unpack such archives.
.PP
.I Shell
does
.B some
security checking, but to believe that it will protect against all
trojan horses is probably naive.
.PP
The program's parser is line-based, where lines are then split into
tokens; it is not a true token-based parser.
In general, it is best if all
.I /bin/sh
keywords that can appear alone on a line do so, and that compound
commands (i.e., using a semi-colon) be avoided.
For more details on the syntax, see the source (sorry...).
.PP
The ``\-v'' option prints out the current version and exits.
.SH BUGS
It is probably easier to write a true portable replacement for /bin/sh
than it is to write something which understands all shar formats.
.SH SEE ALSO
shar(1L).