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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!we13!ihnp4!fortune!olson
From: olson@fortune.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.unix
Subject: Re: An odd difference between 'cat file' - (nf)
Message-ID: <3092@fortune.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 18-Apr-84 15:09:30 EST
Article-I.D.: fortune.3092
Posted: Wed Apr 18 15:09:30 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 19-Apr-84 04:21:13 EST
Sender: notes@fortune.UUCP
Organization: Fortune Systems, Redwood City, CA
Lines: 27

#R:opus:-36700:fortune:26900048:000:1047
fortune!olson    Apr 18 10:17:00 1984

>>  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?
>  			Tom Gloger
>  			ihnp4!ltuxa!tty3b!tag

The same as what the csh or sh does if you give it explicit
names!  The other files are passed as arguments to the command;
(e.g. cat > a b), neither csh or sh care where the '> file' occurs in
the command line.

Unfortunately this is NOT what happens.  If you have files
a1 and a2, and type cat > a*, sh will (SILENTLY!) create a file
called a* (as complained about in the original note), while csh
complains 'a*: Ambiguous' (even if nonomatch is set).

The basic complaint is that sh does NOT expand wild cards after
>, <, <<, and >> (and their variants), while csh does.  How ambiguity
or lack of matches are handled is something else altogether!
	Dave Olson, Fortune Systems
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