Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!watmath!iuvax!mailrus!cornell!batcomputer!lacey From: lacey@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (John Lacey) Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions Subject: Re: Neat csh feature Summary: Wildcards are not the same as file completion Keywords: Pulled from comp.unix.wizards Message-ID: <8545@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu> Date: 2 Aug 89 16:00:19 GMT References: <62079@linus.UUCP> <3574@uokmax.UUCP> Reply-To: lacey@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu (John Lacey) Distribution: na Organization: Cornell Theory Center, Cornell University, Ithaca NY Lines: 27 In article <3574@uokmax.UUCP> jkmedcal@uokmax.UUCP (Jeff K Medcalf) writes: >In article <62079@linus.UUCP> rtidd@mitre.arpa (Randy Tidd) writes: >> [about file name completion in csh.] > >This is both true and elegant. However, cat v* will do the same thing. > [ ... ] >The shell may expand with some wierdness under some circumstances, though. This last warning is more of a danger than you suppose. File completion will behave differently if the given sequence is not unique. In that case, at best wildcards will give an error (i.e., cd) but `cat v*' where v is not unique will be unpleasant. File completion using will tell you when you press escape whether the given sequence is unique, and you can make it so, without causing some unexpected to happen. This is especially handy as file completion will work on any pathname, and you get interactive feedback at checking the name, without having to ls the other directory. So, these tools really are orthogonal---use wildcards to specify multiple files matching a pattern, and file completion to shorten the typing of long names. -- John Lacey lacey@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu cornell!batcomputer!lacey After August 16: jjlacey@owucomcn.bitnet If you have to, try mdl@sppy00.UUCP or maybe {...}!osu-cis!sppy00!mdl