Path: utzoo!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!chinacat!sequoia!rpp386!jfh From: jfh@rpp386.cactus.org (John F Haugh II) Newsgroups: alt.sources.d Subject: Re: shell pipeline to reverse the order of lines. Message-ID: <19079@rpp386.cactus.org> Date: 28 Feb 91 13:07:29 GMT References: <1991Feb26.025903.5850@NCoast.ORG> <1991Feb27.010612.25618@agate.berkeley.edu> <19074@rpp386.cactus.org> <2763@kraftbus.cs.tu-berlin.de> Reply-To: jfh@rpp386.cactus.org (John F Haugh II) Organization: Lone Star Cafe and BBS Service Lines: 31 X-Clever-Slogan: Recycle or Die. In article <2763@kraftbus.cs.tu-berlin.de> net@opal.cs.tu-berlin.de (Oliver Laumann) writes: >In article <19074@rpp386.cactus.org> jfh@rpp386.cactus.org (John F Haugh II) writes: >> % tail -r /etc/passwd >> usage: tail [+|-[n][lbc][f]] [file] >> >> [..] Watch out for those non-standard features. > >Considering that the `tail' command under vanilla BSD (at least 4.2 and >4.3 BSD) has this `feature' I wouldn't call it non-standard. After all, >`tail' is a BSD command. What would you prefer to call a feature which does not exist on all systems that have the command? What would you prefer to call a command which may not exist on all systems? How about ... a non- standard feature on a non-standard command? As for being a ``BSD'' feature, I've yet to see a UNIX system without the command, and that includes my 9 year old XENIX system, and the 10 year old USG 5.0 system before that. My ``Release 5.0 UNIX System User's Manual'', which used to be dated July 1981 (or so, I forget) gives the same 'tail [ +/-[number][lbc[f]]] [file]' usage I gave above. The definitive test of BSD-ness was to drag out the 4.3-reno freed sources tape and see if there was a tail there. Nope, no tail. Perhaps you have tail confused with head, which =is= a BSD command. -- John F. Haugh II UUCP: ...!cs.utexas.edu!rpp386!jfh Ma Bell: (512) 832-8832 Domain: jfh@rpp386.cactus.org "I've never written a device driver, but I have written a device driver manual" -- Robert Hartman, IDE Corp.