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From: gwyn@brl-smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn )
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: /dev/stdin for 4.3?
Message-ID: <5872@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Date: Tue, 19-May-87 16:11:32 EDT
Article-I.D.: brl-smok.5872
Posted: Tue May 19 16:11:32 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 23-May-87 02:33:44 EDT
References: <7359@brl-adm.ARPA> <983@bobkat.UUCP>
Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) <gwyn>)
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 10

In article <983@bobkat.UUCP> m5@bobkat.UUCP (Mike McNally (Man from Mars)) writes:
>I guess I'm just an ignorant BSD person.  Could somebody post an example
>to provide a motivation for having /dev/stdin?  I know what it is, but 
>I'm having trouble thinking of a situation in which I would want it.

That's simple: any place where the code is set up to deal with a filename
but you might prefer to use the output end of a pipe (for example).
	$ cmd | sort | troff header /dev/stdin trailer
Some commands give special meaning to "-" as a filename, but it is much
better to provide a general facility.