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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!alan
From: alan@allegra.UUCP (Alan S. Driscoll)
Newsgroups: net.unix
Subject: Re: An odd difference between "cat file" and "cat<file"
Message-ID: <2420@allegra.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 17-Apr-84 16:09:48 EST
Article-I.D.: allegra.2420
Posted: Tue Apr 17 16:09:48 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 18-Apr-84 08:09:49 EST
References: <3723@utcsrgv.UUCP>, <367@opus.UUCP> <197@alberta.UUCP>, <227@pyuxnn.UUCP>, <342@tty3b.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill
Lines: 18


>>  I frankly don't know why there is a difference between cat ab* and
>>  cat <ab*.  It seems to me that file name expansion should be done
>>  before anything else.

>  So tell me, what would you expect to see if ab* matched two or more
>  files?

I would have expected an error message, of course.  I would also have
expected an error message after typing

	cat < abc abd

In fact, both sh and csh silently ignore 'abc'.  (Surprise!)

-- 
	Alan S. Driscoll
	AT&T Bell Laboratories