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From: det@hawkmoon.MN.ORG (Derek E. Terveer)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: UNIX mind-set -> OK, OK!
Message-ID: <1991Jan15.105734.1651@hawkmoon.MN.ORG>
Date: 15 Jan 91 10:57:34 GMT
References: <1991Jan13.113349.21937@ims.alaska.edu> <11305@lanl.gov> <1991Jan14.013815.11419@ims.alaska.edu> <9101141022.AA02013@iecc.cambridge.ma.us> <1991Jan14.190645.8250@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
Organization: Home System (One of the Eternal Champions); Eagan, MN, 55123-2507, USA
Lines: 26

andy@Theory.Stanford.EDU (Andy Freeman) writes:

>The major cost of being independent is that the shell doesn't know
>what kind of arguments it is processing.  Thus, it is consistent only
>at the cost of being extremely limited.  When the shell wants to do
>something more than just pass on an argument, it assumes that the
>argument is a file name specification and does the only thing it knows
>how to do, namely expand it.  That's fine if every string is a file
>name, but that's not the case, and there's nothing that the unix
>approach can do about it.
>One could remove the unix-approach limitations by providing some
>mechanism for programs to tell the shell about their arguments.

what about quoting?  For example:

egrep "[a-j]*" *

or

egrep '[a-j]*' *

Isn't that (the user) telling the shell to not expand the first argument?
-- 
Derek "Tigger" Terveer	det@hawkmoon.MN.ORG - MNFHA, NCS - UMN Women's Lax, MWD
I am the way and the truth and the light, I know all the answers; don't need
your advice.  -- "I am the way and the truth and the light" -- The Legendary Pink Dots