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From: chet@odin (Chet Ramey)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.shell
Subject: Re: copying files
Message-ID: <1990Dec18.155945.10089@usenet.ins.cwru.edu>
Date: 18 Dec 90 15:59:45 GMT
References: <1990Dec07.201727.11006@Kesa.COM> <28626@mimsy.umd.edu> <8525@star.cs.vu.nl>
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In article <8525@star.cs.vu.nl> maart@cs.vu.nl (Maarten Litmaath) writes:

>...just like the POSIX shell.  POSIX `blessed' the existing practice (*),
>that is `!', instead of `^', which would have been more consistent with
>the regular expression syntaxes.  But who gives a damn about consistency?

It is sort of consistent, in a twisted sort of way.  Everywhere in the
shell that `not' is needed, `!' is used:  to invert the return value of
a pipeline, to negate a test in the `test' command (which is pretty much
assumed to be built in), and to negate a pattern in file name generation.

Chet
-- 
Chet Ramey				``I die, Horatio''
Network Services Group, Case Western Reserve University
chet@ins.CWRU.Edu
                My opinions are just those, and mine alone.