Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!sdd.hp.com!mips!twg.com!david From: david@twg.com (David S. Herron) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.misc Subject: Re: "-----" in comp.sources.amiga posting headers deprecated Keywords: the achingly nuzzlable neck of TJ Flynn (tm xanthian lust, inc.) Message-ID: <8722@gollum.twg.com> Date: 8 Mar 91 03:00:13 GMT References: <1991Mar6.003554.10977@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> Distribution: na Organization: The Wollongong Group, Palo Alto, CA Lines: 42 In article kherron@ms.uky.edu (Kenneth Herron) writes: >xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) writes: ... >>In particular, this confuses standard Unix "unshar" software (which >>mistakes it for a "cut" line, and then tries to execute the next line as >>sh commands), defeats automatic unpacking, and necessitates hand >>editing to unpack the files, a minor, but unnecessary, annoyance. ... >Unshar is not a standard part of unix, and if it's confusing the contents ... >If you're unpacking on unix, you can always pipe the shar file to sh; >that's the original idea behind shar files anyway. And yes, I realize >that this is a security risk. Ahem.. Piping the file to /bin/sh doesn't work because /bin/sh usually gets really confused with all the non-/bin/sh stuff (y'know, Header: lines and that witty commentary at the beginning..) The Unix 'unshar' program reads down into the file until it finds something looking like the beginning of an archive. That includes cut lines like Kent talks about or "#!" lines or etc.. I *know* that I installed that program at ms.uky.edu long ago. It's possible that someone later on deleted it ... Oh, BTW, Hi Kenny! (And don't tell me you throw away that useful commentary at the beginning? Shame! How else do you know who to blame on that cheap PD software!?) David -- <- David Herron, an MMDF & WIN/MHS guy, <- Formerly: David Herron -- NonResident E-Mail Hack <- <- "MS-DOS? Where we're going we don't need MS-DOS." --Back To The Future