Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cbmvax!uunet!cos!fetter
From: fetter@cos.com (Bob Fetter)
Newsgroups: comp.os.misc
Subject: Re: Globbing
Message-ID: <44190@cos.com>
Date: 14 Mar 91 02:37:58 GMT
References: <19217@cbmvax.commodore.com> <5573:Feb2307:19:4491@kramden.acf.nyu.edu> <00085@meph.UUCP> <5946:Mar1122:11:0691@kramden.acf.nyu.edu>
Reply-To: fetter@cos.UUCP (Bob Fetter)
Organization: Corporation for Open Systems, McLean, VA
Lines: 30

In article <5946:Mar1122:11:0691@kramden.acf.nyu.edu> brnstnd@kramden.acf.nyu.edu (Dan Bernstein) writes:
>
>I and many others have been pushing for utilities that understand
>(null-terminated) lists of filenames passed through a descriptor. Then
>as long as echo * (or echo0 *) works, you can pass arbitrarily many
>filenames to any program. You can already do this with find, of course,
>though its syntax is more powerful and hence less concise.

  Independent of the other items raised in this thread, what is meant
by arguments "passed through a descriptor"?

  Having worked on/with systems with descriptor *paired* argument lists
(case in point Multics, where the argv[] pointer array was coupled with
a descriptor[] pointer array, the paired items giving the address of the
data along with the type), I can perhaps *intuit* what you mean here.

  Still, what do you mean here?

  If you are proposing having type information tied with argument lists
and having this put into the Unix environment, well, it would seem that
this would bust one heck of a lot MORE software than the innoculous
suggestion that globbing be handled by programs also.  I could go on
about what type binding would involve in argument parsing routines
and how it reaches the point where generic library routines are involved
(a-la the globbing "debate" going on), but it would be a digression
until I understand the point your making here.

  ???

  -Bob-