Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!att!linac!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!asuvax!ncar!hsdndev!cmcl2!lanl!cochiti.lanl.gov!jlg From: jlg@cochiti.lanl.gov (Jim Giles) Newsgroups: comp.os.misc Subject: Re: Globbing Message-ID: <17602@lanl.gov> Date: 12 Mar 91 23:45:40 GMT Sender: news@lanl.gov Reply-To: jlg@cochiti.lanl.gov (Jim Giles) Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory Lines: 25 In article peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) writes: In article <17097@lanl.gov> jlg@lanl.gov (Jim Giles) writes: > 2) You want an argument globbed, but _not_ in the context of the > local filespace. > 3) You want the argument globbed, but _not_ in the context of a > filespace at all. No problem. *just quote the pattern that you're passing to the program*. Since the quoting and shell globbing are uniform and consistent, the result is clean and consistent. Because the globbing isn't in the local file space, the program can't glob them using the "standard globbing function" anyway, so it's going to have to be treated specially anyway. Please read the original post again. The mnemonic purpose of quoting is to _prevent_ globbing. But, in _both_ these cases, I _WANT_ globbing. I just want it done in a different context. Further mnemonic violence occurs when I want to pass a special character through to the other context - _your_ "solution" requires multiple quoting - _BLETCH!!_ Both the tool and the user _know_ what the arguments to a given tool mean. The shell _DOES_NOT_. It is foolish, therefore, to have the shell do the globbing. Period. J. Giles