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