[headtailgrep]

I'm thinking about a product/tool for the Blackberry that gives one unix shell like access..

what would you use this for? Simple internet-related tools such as:
ping
ftp
whois
traceroute
talk
ls

among other commands that might find itself useful..

of course it would have to be a 'unix shell' app that you would run, because having icons for all of these is quite cumbersome. A unix shell would simply be an 'interface' to this, one could do it in DOS too..

any thoughts?

[Mark Rejhon]

A command line is an interesting idea....

True discrete command binaries. If you want a true command line, you'd want Java binaries in separate files for separate commands, so that new commands can be added. This could get tricky. The need to use a filesystem could get tricky. The commands would have to be designed to output to this command window. Ideally, you'd want to try to gain access to all the files stored in your home directory on your BlackBerry (The same directory where you can save your attachments to under BlackBerryOS 4), and be able to navigate through it like a real filesystem. This method could be an extremely challenging programming project, and might not be possible given current security limitations.

A pure interpretor. One alternative is a script interpretor that understands a set of predefined hardcoded commands, and having an immediate-execution mode that emulates a "command window" so that commands can be typed and immediately executed. Performance would be a lot better. Ability to add commands would be severely limited. This would be a relatively simple programming project, although there would be more limitations.

So that sums up the nutshell of two different possible approaches to accomplishing a command tool as you suggest.