The given names are marked readonly and the values of the these names may not be changed by subsequent assignment. If no arguments are given, a list of all readonly names is printed.

The given names are marked readonly and these names cannot be changed by subsequent assignment.

On this man page, ksh(1) commands that are preceded by one or two ** (asterisks) are treated specially in the following ways:

1. Variable assignment lists preceding the command remain in effect when the command completes.
2. I/O redirections are processed after variable assignments.
3. Errors cause a script that contains them to abort.
4. Words, following a command preceded by ** that are in the format of a variable assignment, are expanded with the same rules as a variable assignment. This means that tilde substitution is performed after the = sign and word splitting and file name generation are not performed.