Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!um-math!sharkey!cfctech!teemc!hpftc!zardoz!henry.jpl.nasa.gov!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!usc!rutgers!dptg!att!chinet!les From: les@chinet.chi.il.us (Leslie Mikesell) Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards Subject: Re: recursive grep Message-ID: <9408@chinet.chi.il.us> Date: 29 Aug 89 20:10:10 GMT References: <13710@polyslo.calpoly.edu> <144000002@cdp> <2390@auspex.auspex.com> Reply-To: les@chinet.chi.il.us (Leslie Mikesell) Organization: Chinet - Public Access Unix Lines: 24 In article <2390@auspex.auspex.com> guy@auspex.auspex.com (Guy Harris) writes: > >I wouldn't complain about xargs not being capable of handling > >filenames with spaces and newlines. There are a lot of other > >programs that will break under the same circumstances. >In which case I'd not only continue to complain about "xargs", but >complain about those other programs as well.... Well, how would you go about parsing filenames out of a list if you can't use spaces or newlines as the delimiters? Personally, I think it is a mistake to allow control characters or shell metacharacters to be in filenames. Actually, I'd say that it's a mistake to use any characters that could be be in filenames as shell metacharacters, but given the selection available I guess the shell is not really at fault. We've been through this before and I doubt that anyone has changed their mind, but I'll bet no one wants to have a file named ";rm *" in their directories waiting for a shell script to eval it or a program to insert it into a system() call. Les Mikesell