Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!caen!ox.com!mudos!mju From: mju@mudos.ann-arbor.mi.us (Marc Unangst) Newsgroups: comp.unix.misc Subject: Re: Globbing Message-ID: Date: 11 Mar 91 05:28:36 GMT References: <43995@cos.com> Organization: The Programmer's Pit Stop, free Usenet, +1 313 665 2832 Lines: 28 fetter@cos.com (Bob Fetter) writes: > different story. Whether this is a 'good thing' in today's Unix world > is yet another question. If you need to be convinced that taking globbing out of the shell is a Bad Thing, just look at MS-DOS. MS-DOS has never done wildcard globbing for you, and as a result, you have about sixteen thousand different wildcard expansion schemes out there. Some programs don't even support wildcards. Some do, but don't support things like "*/file" (i.e., a wildcarded directory name). Some make you type "*.*" if you mean "all files", and some accept "*" for "all files". (Programs of the former type usually take "*" to mean "all files without an extension".) But definitely the best are the programs that follow COMMAND.COM's lead in expanding wildcards -- "*word*" is the same as "*", which means if you type "del *foo*.bar", you will REALLY delete "*.bar". It's a pain in the ass to remember which programs use which globbing schemes. And it can cause actual damage, if you can't remember what globbing scheme a program uses and do something like the aforementioned "del *foo*.bar". I'd *much* prefer that the shell do the globbing -- at least then, you have some sort of consistancy. -- Marc Unangst | mju@mudos.ann-arbor.mi.us | "Bus error: passengers dumped" ...!umich!leebai!mudos!mju |