Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!cos!fetter
From: fetter@cos.com (Bob Fetter)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Globbing
Message-ID: <44200@cos.com>
Date: 14 Mar 91 18:58:23 GMT
References: <5573:Feb2307:19:4491@kramden.acf.nyu.edu> <19336@cbmvax.commodore.com> <43994@cos.com> <2438@ria.ccs.uwo.ca>
Reply-To: fetter@cos.UUCP (Bob Fetter)
Distribution: na
Organization: Corporation for Open Systems, McLean, VA
Lines: 19

In article <2438@ria.ccs.uwo.ca> crispin@csd.uwo.ca (Crispin Cowan) writes:
>In article <43994@cos.com> fetter@cos.UUCP (Bob Fetter) writes:
>>  It doesn't seem to be reasonable in today's environment to expect a
>>"new" operating environment to put/mandate globbing into executables:
>>there is just too much Unix software out there that will break if/when
>>it is "ported" to anything new.
>This is not so clear.  If I want to create a new OS that mandates
>program globbing, and still keep all my spiffy UNIX software, then I
>just add a switch to the C compiler that means "do it the UNIX way,"
>which causes the compiler to insert a crts (C Run-Time Startup) function
>that does globbing on agrc,argv.  Simple.  Now you can have it both
>ways, all you have to do is write a new operating system :-).

  Uh, yeah, I (and probably a host of others) have done just that on
MS-DOS, but what it does is propigate the "blind" expansion of names.
My point of earlier is that it's too late to retrofit Unix software
into doing ->context directed<- wildcard expansion.

  -Bob-