Path: utzoo!mnetor!tmsoft!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!bria!mike Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: shell architecture (to glob or not to glob) Message-ID: <434@bria> Date: 14 Feb 91 06:38:25 GMT References: <378@bria> Reply-To: uunet!bria!mike Organization: MGI Group International, Los Angeles, CA Lines: 37 In an article, skyler.arc.ab.ca!kenw (Ken Wallewein) writes: > >Ever notice that all Unix commands that support globbing only allow it at >the end of the command, and only allow one (possibly list) argument to be >globbed? [...] The shell does the globbing, not the command itself. >That's why you can't say > > mv here/* there/* > >for example. Sure you can, just as long as the last expanded filename is a directory. This is probably not what you want, however. :-) >[...] >I sometimes think that shell-based command line globbing is a violation >of the Unix "one tool, one job" philosophy. And a kludge, at that. It >presumes to know something about the syntax desired by the program. Actually, the presumption is that arguments are files. If you would prefer to not use globbing, then set noglob or use quotes. If there was no way to disable the shell's argument globbing, then yes, I'd agree with you. So, if you want to do what you really intended above, write a program that does the globbing the way you want, and use: movem 'here/*' 'there/*' The joy of UNIX. To be free to be who you want to be. :-) -- Michael Stefanik | Opinions stated are not even my own. Systems Engineer, Briareus Corporation | UUCP: ...!uunet!bria!mike ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- technoignorami (tek'no-ig'no-ram`i) a group of individuals that are constantly found to be saying things like "Well, it works on my DOS machine ..."