Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!udel!ee.udel.edu From: new@ee.udel.edu (Darren New) Newsgroups: comp.os.misc Subject: Re: Globbing Message-ID: <48460@nigel.ee.udel.edu> Date: 21 Mar 91 22:55:41 GMT References: <18511@lanl.gov> Sender: usenet@ee.udel.edu Organization: University of Delaware Lines: 22 Nntp-Posting-Host: estelle.ee.udel.edu In article peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) writes: >But one nice thing about shell scripts: you can fix the bloody things when >they have bugs in them. And not properly quoting variables is a bug. This >is just as bad as a program in VMS or AmigaDOS not globbing when it should, >but with a major difference: it's fixable. Not really. If your program only handles one argument at a time then having the shell expand that argument is a bug you cannot fix. Most UNIX commands don't do this only because they know the shell globs. The only reason that shell globbing is fixable and command globbing isn't is because the shell is an interpreter and commands are usually compiled (or they would be fixable also). I don't think saying "the shell is interpreted and therefore you always have source" has anything to do with the correctness of shell globbing. -- Darren -- --- Darren New --- Grad Student --- CIS --- Univ. of Delaware --- ----- Network Protocols, Graphics, Programming Languages, Formal Description Techniques (esp. Estelle), Coffee, Amigas ----- +=+=+ My time is very valuable, but unfortunately only to me +=+=+