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From: xxremak@csduts1.lerc.nasa.gov (David A. Remaklus)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: UNIX mind-set  (was: How wrong is MS-DOS?)
Message-ID: <1991Jan18.163230.11695@eagle.lerc.nasa.gov>
Date: 18 Jan 91 16:32:30 GMT
References: <1991Jan13.113349.21937@ims.alaska.edu> <11305@lanl.gov> <1991Jan14.013815.11419@ims.alaska.edu>
Reply-To: xxremak@csduts1.UUCP (David A. Remaklus)
Organization: NASA/Lewis Research Center, Cleveland
Lines: 29

>In article <11305@lanl.gov> jlg@lanl.gov (Jim Giles) writes:
>>From article <1991Jan13.113349.21937@ims.alaska.edu>, by floyd@ims.alaska.edu (Floyd Davidson):
>>> [...]
>>> The advantage of UNIX is that tools are trivial to the point of
>>> doing just one basic thing.  As a result each user can easily
>>> build larger tools to do *anything*.  [...]
>>
>>By this logic, ls doesn't fit the paradigm.  I can (on any UNIX)
>>do 'ls x*y' and get all the files whos names begin with x and end
>>with y.  By the paradigm you just stated, I _should_ have to do
>>'ls | grep x*y'.  The fact is, _even_ the UNIX implementors realized
>>that ls should have a built-in filter on file names.  My claim is
>
>
(stuff deleted)

The truth is, the 'ls' command does *NOT* have the 'filter' as is
claimed.  It is the shell that expands x*y into the names of all the
files that begin with x and end in y.  The  purpose of the ls command
is to format this list and optionally provide information about the files
from the inode of the files.  The 'fact is', the ls command is a
tool that does one basic funtion, provide a formatted listing of information
about a specified list of files.

--
David A. Remaklus		   Currently at: NASA Lewis Research Center
Amdahl Corporation				 MS 142-4
(216) 642-1044					 Cleveland, Ohio  44135
(216) 433-5119					 xxremak@csduts1.lerc.nasa.gov