Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!linac!att!rutgers!cbmvax!daveh From: daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.introduction Subject: Re: Wildcards in the CLI Message-ID: <21455@cbmvax.commodore.com> Date: 9 May 91 21:39:27 GMT References: <1991Apr16.155231.18782@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> <7384@munnari.oz.au> <6512@bwdls58.bnr.ca> <20893@cbmvax.commodore.com> <1991Apr25.100919.21595@fwi.uva.nl> <21179@cbmvax.commodore.com> jpc@fct.unl.pt (Jose Pina Coelho) writes: >Because, it has been used with that semantics for too long, half of >the people that use command line, be it MSDOS, Unix, Vms etc ... are >almost hard-wired to recognize * as zero or more characters. > [UNIX regexps, which aren't used for file name matching] > * - Zero or more times the previous pattern. Notice the contradiction? UNIX has never had a reputation for self-consistency and this is a good example. AmigaDOS uses a decent regular expression language for file name globbing, and as of 2.0, makes it a DOS function call than can be used anywhere. > - It's standard (Maybe a standard that never got to ANSI (or maybe > it did), but anyway a standard. The great thing about standards, there are so many of them. One operating system really doesn't need two "standards" for the same thing, much less more than that. And I can guarantee you, if we had made the Amiga's general regular expression matching function equivalent to the UNIX regexp stuff, we would have far more complaints than we do now (the "." being a regexp metacharacter alone would cause chaos the way files are typically named on computers these days). If we had made it the same as the UNIX file name globbing language, we would have a much less powerful means of expression. So, the Amiga has its standard. Try it some time, it works good. -- Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Amiga 3000) "The Crew That Never Rests" {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: hazy BIX: hazy "That's me in the corner, that's me in the spotlight" -R.E.M.