Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!uflorida!haven!ncifcrf!nlm-mcs!adm!smoke!gwyn From: gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn ) Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions Subject: Re: * Question Message-ID: <9020@smoke.BRL.MIL> Date: 30 Nov 88 19:22:31 GMT References: <17661@adm.BRL.MIL> Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB)) Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD. Lines: 15 In article <17661@adm.BRL.MIL> wmartin@almsa-1.arpa (Will Martin -- AMXAL-RI) writes: >cat foo > /data/sa*/bar >What I don't understand is why the expansion doesn't work under "sh". It was a deliberate design decision. The target of > should be just one word, not the potential multiple words that wildcard expansion might produce. To avoid unpleasant surprises, "sh" doesn't expand wildcards in such contexts. However, note that you can save typing using the BRL Bourne shell by using the filename completion feature to automatically fill in the rest of a pathname segment once you've typed the unambiguous prefix for it. I actually prefer this approach anyway, since I get to see the full expansion before the command is executed.