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From: guy@rlgvax.UUCP (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Subject: Re: filename hoopla
Message-ID: <972@rlgvax.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 6-Aug-83 20:09:05 EDT
Article-I.D.: rlgvax.972
Posted: Sat Aug  6 20:09:05 1983
Date-Received: Sun, 7-Aug-83 07:37:49 EDT
References: <3883@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Organization: CCI Office Systems Group, Reston, VA
Lines: 21

The Berkeley version of "rm" (and of "mv") has an option "-" which causes the
scan for options to be terminated.  This way,

	rm -i - *

would cause the argument scanner in "rm" to stop before it gets to the arguments
that came from the expansion of the "*", so they wouldn't be checked to see
if they began with "-".  This should be put into other releases of UNIX.
(Are you listening, USG?)

While we're on the subject, how about putting the code in from Berkeley's
"mv" to permit directories to be moved around, and not just renamed?  Requiring
you to be super-user (so you can use the "/etc/mvdir" shell file) is sort of
a nuisance; the Berkeley "mv" does check to make sure the move is legal.
We're running the System III "rm" and "cp"/"mv"/"ln" here, with all the bug
fixes and enhancements from the 4.1BSD version folded in.  (The original
motivation for this was that the error messages from "ln" in certain cases were
less than informative; this has been corrected too.)

	Guy Harris
	{seismo,mcnc,we13,brl-bmd,allegra}!rlgvax!guy