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Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Beginner help request


From: Andrew Suffield
Subject: Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Beginner help request
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 14:51:15 +0000
User-agent: Mutt/1.5.5.1+cvs20040105i

On Sat, Jan 10, 2004 at 08:49:40PM -0800, Tom Lord wrote:
>     > From: Dustin Sallings <address@hidden>
> 
>     > On Jan 10, 2004, at 15:52, Tom Lord wrote:
> 
>     > > Typically, if there are no files matching *.php, then the shell will
>     > > expand that to "*.php".  I'm not sure off the top of my head if that
>     > > is standard posix behavior for a shell (I think it is but wouldn't
>     > > swear to it) -- I'd suggest looking for the sh spec on something like
>     > > the opengroup web site if you are curious.
> 
>     >         tcsh produces an error when all globs on a commandline fail to 
> expand 
>     > to anything.  It seems to be a good interactive behavior.
> 
> Oh, I agree with that.   Not just interactive -- I can't see any
> circumstance in which I'd really _want_ anything different.   My guess
> would be that, sadly, the "'*.foo' with no matching files expands to
> *.foo" behavior was originally intended as a _feature_ for interactive
> use.   Isn't that weird?

Not a very good guess. Think ssh, rsync, etc. If the glob doesn't
expand locally, it has another shot at being expanded remotely, so
"ssh foo ls *.c" and "rsync -a foo:tmp/* ." will actually work without
needing careful quoting.

bash at least allows you to turn off this behaviour with the nullglob
option, so that "*.c" will expand to "" if nothing matches (empty
string, not no string, and commands are expected to behave suitably if
they receive an empty argument - which tla add does not, and I'm
pretty sure that's a bug). I'd expect any interactive bourne shell to
provide similar options.

-- 
  .''`.  ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield
 : :' :  http://www.debian.org/ |
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