After installing gcc-3.4.0 and configuring it to use clib2 (with a severely kludged specs file), I have now tried to compile every source file in the tcsh source distribution as a quick way to determine the feasibility of porting it.
I am happy to write that with a few exception it seems the tcsh source is _relatively_ portable. The main areas which seem to need a bit of work are the following:
* termios * missing signals * resource limits * multi-user support * fork()/vfork()
Of these, only the missing signals and fork()/vfork() appears to pose any significant problem and as a positive side-effect, we might contribute further to the development of clib2 (just an idea).
The ixemul-compiled tcsh binary is extremely unstable on my machine and crashes randomly, usually in less than 15 seconds. It does, however, appear to handle csh scripts - which the older csh implementation did not (it only handled a subset).
Unfortunately, this still does not indicate if it would be easier to write our own intepreter or not.
-Peter aka. Archprogrammer, still investigating.
PS: If this is uninteresting, just tell me and I will stop posting status updates here.
Reality is for people who cannot face ScienceFiction. Only lefthanded people are in their right minds.