NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #27/NN_1992_27.iso/spool/comp/unix/wizards/4824

Internet Message Format | 1992-11-20 | 1.7 KB

Xref: sparky comp.unix.wizards:4824 comp.unix.shell:4827 comp.unix.misc:4278
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards,comp.unix.shell,comp.unix.misc
Path: sparky!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!tamsun.tamu.edu!ski8032
From: [e-mail] (The Man Behind The Curtain)
Subject: Re: The Problem with UNIX
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Organization: Texas A&M University, College Station
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 19:05:58 GMT
Lines: 45

Thus spake [e-mail] (peter da silva):
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (The Man Behind The Curtain) writes:
>> echo a > a
>> echo b > b
>> cat a b > b
>> cat: input b is output
>> cat a
>> a
>> cat b
>> a
>
>echo a > a
>echo b > b
>cat a b > b
>b: File exists.
>cat a
>a
>cat b
>b
>
>So, what's your problem?

Four of the four Un*x systems I just tested react just the way I
described.  You must be using a more sophisticated shell than
that which I am using (tcsh), but I think that it probably only catches
simple problems; once an expression gets even slightly complex,
I would guess that it does not catch all of these kind of things.

Is it consistent?  What does tail -10 .fingerees > .fingerees do?
What does echo `cat a b` > b do?  If I do a ln /usr/bin/cat zog; ./zog
a b > b, does it report the same message?  If I write a shell
script foo like this:

#!/bin/sh
cat a b

does foo > b work correctly?

>Peter da Silva / 77487-5012 USA / [phone]

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