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From: gwyn@brl-tgr.ARPA (Doug Gwyn )
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Subject: Re: How should command substitution (`...`) work?
Message-ID: <6265@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Date: Sat, 1-Dec-84 01:31:28 EST
Article-I.D.: brl-tgr.6265
Posted: Sat Dec  1 01:31:28 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 4-Dec-84 05:44:20 EST
References: <332@stcvax.UUCP>
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab
Lines: 9

> 		p `egrep -l pattern *`
>
>      It seems more natural to me that the shell should (silently) not
> run a pipeline if any command substitutions in it fail.

The Bourne shell "never" fails on a file pattern; if there is no match
it just uses the pattern itself.  There was at one time a shell variable
called FILEMATCH that one could set to obtain a different behavior, but
there was not much enthusiasm for this so it went away.