Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!seismo!sundc!rlgvax!hadron!jsdy
From: jsdy@hadron.UUCP (Joseph S. D. Yao)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: Worm/Passwords (really: 'rm *')
Summary: Shell script fails when ...
Message-ID: <815@hadron.UUCP>
Date: 22 Nov 88 17:44:51 GMT
References: <22401@cornell.UUCP> <4627@rayssd.ray.com> <8563@rpp386.Dallas.TX.US> <125@embossed.UUCP> <672@quintus.UUCP> <466@yarra.oz.au> <860@sceard.UUCP>
Reply-To: jsdy@hadron.UUCP (Joseph S. D. Yao)
Organization: Hadron, Inc., Fairfax, VA
Lines: 18

In article <860@sceard.UUCP> mrm@sceard.UUCP (0040-M.R.Murphy) writes:
>#! /bin/sh -
>if test `echo "$*" |wc -w` -gt 5
>	...
>#change "echo" below to the command(s) that you feel like doing for $*
>echo $*

This shell script, and all shell scripts that use "$*" in this manner,
fail in the presence of special characters like white space in file
names.  This is a problem, if you read the (numerous) articles titled
"Ghost file", and the like.

	Joe Yao		jsdy@hadron.COM (not yet domainised)
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