Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!sdd.hp.com!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!uupsi!cmcl2!kramden.acf.nyu.edu!brnstnd From: brnstnd@kramden.acf.nyu.edu (Dan Bernstein) Newsgroups: comp.os.misc Subject: Re: Globbing Message-ID: <9990:Mar2104:40:4991@kramden.acf.nyu.edu> Date: 21 Mar 91 04:40:49 GMT References: <18365@lanl.gov> Organization: IR Lines: 20 In article kenw@skyler.arc.ab.ca (Ken Wallewein) writes: > So what you're saying is that it's better for programs not to glob, because > that way you can totally bypass the globbing mechanism if you want to. > That makes a lot of sense. But it has a lot of limitations, too, as have > been well described in this discussion. No, the limitations have *not* been well described. People repeatedly give the example of renaming multiple files; once they learn that mvm "*.c" "=1.c.bak" does the job, they shut up. > What seems to be missing in most environments is a well-planned syntax > which allows one to say clearly and unambiguously what one means -- to say > what is a wildcard expression, what is a command option, and what is > literal data -- and be sure both that a program gets exactly the command we > want it to get, and that it interprets that that command the way we want. /*/*.c is a wildcard expression. -x is a command option. "$var" is literal data. ---Dan