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From: guy%gorodish@Sun.COM (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Why does this shell program run under csh????
Message-ID: <21534@sun.uucp>
Date: Fri, 19-Jun-87 14:42:26 EDT
Article-I.D.: sun.21534
Posted: Fri Jun 19 14:42:26 1987
Date-Received: Mon, 22-Jun-87 04:52:48 EDT
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> I will just barely refrain from saying what I think about
> a command language which uses comments as control structures.

Thank you for doing so; I know of no shell on UNIX that does this.
"#!"  is not a control structure.  It is a cookie that is recognized
by the kernel on some systems when it appears at the front of a file
to be executed, just like the various other magic numbers.

The only reason why it begins with a character that is commonly used
as a comment character is that any other choice would run a greater
risk of confusing the interpreter program when it reads the file, or
would require more potential interpreter characters to be changed.
	Guy Harris
	{ihnp4, decvax, seismo, decwrl, ...}!sun!guy
	guy@sun.com