Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!wuarchive!udel!haven!mimsy!fe2o3!rusty From: rusty@fe2o3.UUCP (Rusty Haddock) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech Subject: Re: Wildcards Message-ID: <335@fe2o3.UUCP> Date: 20 Mar 90 20:05:21 GMT References: <102618@linus.UUCP> <3138@draken.nada.kth.se> <10211@cbmvax.commodore.com> Reply-To: rusty%fe2o3@mimsy.umd.edu (Rusty Haddock) Organization: 1/entropy Lines: 43 In article <10211@cbmvax.commodore.com> daveh@cbmvax (Dave Haynie) writes: >In article mwm@raven.pa.dec.com (Mike (Real Amiga have keyboard garages) Meyer) writes: ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ -- You got that one right Mikey! :-} >... >VMS is still oddly restricted. In many cases, you actually have to >type "*.*;*" to match everything in a directory, whereas you'd simply >type "*" under UNIX, "#?" under AmigaDOS, or "?*" in Apollo-OS. I >suppose the MessyDOS user would be required to type "*.*". Aren't >universal wildcards consistent? Well, they would be if filenames were always just a long string of characters. Under Unix and AmigaDOS, filenames are not composed of various "fields" such as filename, extension, and revision number (ala VMesS). Unix file names are simply strings (length limited by the OS filesystem) of eight-bit bytes. Any sort of "extensions" (e.g. .c, .o, .f, and .s) are either generally accepted conventions or desired by not-so-liberal compilers. Thusly, "visual separators" such as a period are no more different in a filename than the letter A or the number 6. Under ugly and awkward beasts [for me anyhow] such as VMesS and MesS-DOS filename are composed of fields enforced by the file system or O/S. VMesS has filenames broken up into fields and the wildcards only apply to a given field. The period (and VMesS's semicolon) are not "really" quite part of the filename (at least not how I look at them). If I remember right, under IBM's VM file names have three parts also; a filename, extension, and disk letter(?). As best I can remember, file specifications used whitespace to separate the fields (and not periods). And does anyone remember TRS-DOS?? :-} Didn't it use slashes (/) to separate filename and extension? Oh well, back to my cage.... -Rusty- -- Rusty Haddock o {uunet,rutgers}!mimsy.umd.edu!fe2o3!rusty Laurel, Maryland o rusty%fe2o3@mimsy.umd.edu -=> This .signature protected by Smith & Wesson <=-