Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!brunix!doorknob!jak From: jak@cs.brown.edu (Jak Kirman) Newsgroups: comp.unix.shell Subject: Csh: first character of an arg is '-' Message-ID: Date: 7 Oct 90 00:25:05 GMT Sender: news@brunix.UUCP Reply-To: jak@cs.brown.edu Organization: Department of Computer Science, Brown University Lines: 26 Context: SunOS 4.1, /bin/csh I want to be able to test whether the first character of an argument to a csh-script is '-'. The man page makes it sound like ~= should work for this, but I could make no sense of that portion of the man page, and was not able to find any case where the result of ~= was non-0 except the trivial case where the right-hand side contained no wildcards and was the same as the left... I do *not* want to have to exec a program; I want this to be fast. Please do not tell me to use sh -- I know it is better for scripts, but the syntax is rather arcane, and I don't have the time to learn it right now, although eventually I will probably have to. If you are quite certain this is not possible in csh, but it is in sh, I would appreciate a quick example of sh usage. As an aside, is there any way to find the first character of a word in csh or sh? Thanks. Jak jak@cs.brown.edu ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ He had been kicked in the head by a mule when young, and believed everything he read in the Sunday papers. -- George Ade