Implementing ! functionality for Korn shell

Hello,
No one answered this on the Tech Board, so I thought I'd post it here.
I'm trying to implement the ! operator from the Bourne shell for Korn shell. The ! operator allows you to execute the last command entered beginning with the word after !. Here's what I have so far. Note: I know that fc -s would allow me to implement the functionality of !, but I did not know about fc before writing this. I figured I might as well go through with this.

Code:

#!/bin/ksh

_()
{
 i=0;

 tmp=`history`;

 if (($?==0)) then
  list=`history | cut -f2`;

  #sequence to store each line in an array
  while [[ -n $list ]] do
   temp2=$temp;
   temp=${list%
*};

   #last line does not have \n
   if [[ $temp2 == $temp ]] then
    hist[$i]=$temp;
    list="";
   else
    hist[$i]=${list#$temp
};
    list=$temp;
    ((i=$i+1));
   fi
  done

 else
  print "ksh: _: no history (yet)";
 fi

 ((i=0));

 while (($i < ${#hist[*]})) do
  if [[ "${hist[$i]}" == "$1" ]] then
   print "here: ${hist[$i]}";
   ${hist[$i]};
   return $?;
  fi

  ((i=$i+1));
 done

 print "ksh: _: $1: not in history";
 return 1;
}

This works for things like "_ ls", but it won't work for something like "_ l", which would find the first command beginning with "l" and execute it. I tried the following, but it always executes the last command:

Code:

 while (($i < ${#hist[*]})) do
  tmp="\"${hist[$i]}\"";
  `perl -e 'exit $tmp =~ /^$1/'`;

  if (($?==1)) then
#  if [[ "${hist[$i]}" == "$1" ]] then
   print ${hist[$i]};
   ${hist[$i]};
   return $?;
  fi

  ((i=$i+1));
 done

I would prefer not to use perl, just the shells simple globbing rules. I am using pdksh that comes with NetBSD.

Thanks,
Yasir

That last hist line should have been `${hist[$i]}`;