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From: flee@blitz (Felix Lee)
Newsgroups: comp.bugs.4bsd,comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Another bug with csh - `cat /tmp/a`
Keywords: Ad-hoc parsing csh bug
Message-ID: <3869@psuvax1.cs.psu.edu>
Date: 28 Aug 88 23:49:19 GMT
References: <5144@vdsvax.steinmetz.ge.com>
Sender: news@psuvax1.cs.psu.edu
Reply-To: flee@blitz (Felix Lee)
Organization: Penn State University Computer Science
Lines: 17

In <5144@vdsvax.steinmetz.ge.com>, Bruce G. Barnett writes:
> 	echo ls >/tmp/a
> 	`cat /tmp/a`
> results: 
> 	ls: Command not found.

This is because csh tries to glob the command name:  if you type
"f*" and "f*" expands (uniquely) to "foo", then csh will execute
"foo" without ever looking at your PATH.  ("foo" will get executed
even if "." isn't in your PATH.)

And the globbing routine also tries backquote substitution.  So
the globbing succeeds, and csh ignores your PATH.

Intuitively obvious, no?
--
Felix Lee	*!psuvax1!flee