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From: maart@cs.vu.nl (Maarten Litmaath)
Newsgroups: alt.sources.d
Subject: Re: Multiple executables in path (Was: NON-SOURCE POSTINGS CONSIDERED HARMFUL!)
Message-ID: <8807@star.cs.vu.nl>
Date: 21 Jan 91 23:01:58 GMT
References: <1991Jan17.224403.16050@convex.com> <MLEISHER.91Jan18165838@thrinakia.nmsu.edu> <17373:Jan1908:30:3191@kramden.acf.nyu.edu>
Sender: news@cs.vu.nl
Reply-To: maart@cs.vu.nl (Maarten Litmaath)
Organization: VU Dept. of Computer Science, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Lines: 32

In article <17373:Jan1908:30:3191@kramden.acf.nyu.edu>,
	brnstnd@kramden.acf.nyu.edu (Dan Bernstein) writes:
)Hmmm. I've always been satisfied with the speed of

[_Excessively_ long line split.]

)  alias which 'echo `echo "$PATH" | tr : '\''\012'\'\
)  ' | sed -e '\''s+$+/\!:1+'\'' -e '\''s:^:/.[.]:'\'\
)  '` | sed '\''s:/../:/:g'\'''

This alias doesn't deal with aliases (easily fixed), but most importantly
it _fails_.  Two examples:

	% which passwd
	/bin/passwd /usr/bin/passwd /etc/passwd

	# How odd: /etc/passwd is executable!

	% set path=($path .)
	% cp /bin/true foo
	% which foo


	# Silence.

Had you read the documentation of `which5', you would have known it's not
that trivial to get things right.
--
kinnersley@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (Bill Kinnersley):
	"Do phonograph turntables turn the other way in Australia?"
gjh@krebs.acc.Virginia.EDU (Galen J. Hekhuis)
	"How do you think satanic messages were discovered on records?"