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From: lvc@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Lawrence V. Cipriani)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: To . or not to .
Message-ID: <970@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu>
Date: Tue, 3-Nov-87 19:27:25 EST
Article-I.D.: tut.970
Posted: Tue Nov  3 19:27:25 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 7-Nov-87 09:49:10 EST
References: <648@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> <722@wacsvax.OZ>
Organization: Ohio State Computer & Info Science
Lines: 49
Summary: the problem is the shell

Frank O'Connor writes:
> Please flame me if I am wrong but why wouldn't :
> 	for p in $x/*/
> 	do
> 		stuff
> 	done
> be sufficient. I don't believe the . is necessary. However, don't
> take this an argument for doing away with . and ..!
> 
> Frank O'Connor

Actually the problem seems to be in the shell and not the os.  In
the Bourne shell on my SVR2 AT&T 3B5 */ expands to literall */

However, in the Korn shell on the same machine */ expands to
f1/ f2/ ... fn/

Where f1 f2 ... fn are the names of *files and directories* in .

Using csh under BSD */ expands to only directory names (at least
on the Pyramid machine I'm writing this on).

I wrote this short C program:

#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/stat.h>

main(argc, argv)
    int argc; char *argv[];
{
    register int i;
    struct stat stbuf;

    for (i = 1; i < argc; i++)
	if (stat(argv[i], &stbuf) == -1)
	    printf("cannot stat '%s'\n", argv[i]);
}

Under BOTH BSD and SVR2 I ran it with arguments of
filename/ or directoryname/ the stat succeeded.
So it seems the os doesn't give a toot if there is
an extra slash or not.  Same result if you use open
instead of stat (of course).

Now whether or not the shell should expand */ to include only
directories I don't know.  It might would be useful.  I can
mention this to Dave Korn as a suggestion for ksh if you want.

	Larry Cipriani tut!lvc