Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!bellcore!uunet!mcsun!ukc!tcdcs!dce.ie!ch
From: ch@dce.ie (Charles Bryant)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.programmer
Subject: Re: filters
Message-ID: <1990Dec7.103209.3980@dce.ie>
Date: 7 Dec 90 10:32:09 GMT
References: <1990Dec4.103255.14195@dce.ie> <109685@convex.convex.com> <10763:Dec221:21:1590@kramden.acf.nyu.edu> <1990Dec4.105612.14422@dce.ie> <1990Dec5.014313.28592@ibmpcug.co.uk>
Organization: Datacode Communications Ltd, Dublin, Ireland
Lines: 29

In article <1990Dec5.014313.28592@ibmpcug.co.uk> dylan@ibmpcug.CO.UK (Matthew Farwell) writes:
>In article <1990Dec4.105612.14422@dce.ie> ch@dce.ie (Charles Bryant) writes:
>>Many cat programs have several options, none of which can really be justified:
>>
>>	-u (unbuffered). My cat is always unbuffered. dd(1) is for buffering
>
>Sorry, but I find typing 'cat foobar' quite a bit easier than typing
>'dd if=foobar of=/dev/tty bs=512'. Strange, I know, but its this little
>idiosyncracy of mine.

Firstly, if foobar is a regular file there is no difference, and also
on my system 'dd if=foobar of=/dev/tty bs=512' can be abbreviated to
'dd <foobar'. Of course dd has an annoying 'feature' of printing the number
of blocks processed, but I have written a replacement dd to fix this as
well as the lack of an option to pad output to a multiple of the block
size (as is required with some tape drives). (I can give anyone a copy
of this who wants it).

>>	-s (silent).	Just use "cat 2>/dev/null".
>
>Assuming, of course that you're in a shell of some sort.

How else would it be invoked? The only other way I can think of is via
exec() when it is trivial to either close(2) or (better) redirect it
to /dev/null.
-- 
Charles Bryant (ch@dce.ie)
--
/usr/ch/.signature: Block device required