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From: ok@quintus.UUCP (Richard A. O'Keefe)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: more rm insanity
Message-ID: <337@cresswell.quintus.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 2-Dec-87 18:41:30 EST
Article-I.D.: cresswel.337
Posted: Wed Dec  2 18:41:30 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 6-Dec-87 04:04:31 EST
References: <1257@boulder.Colorado.EDU> <6840002@hpcllmv.HP.COM> <9555@mimsy.UUCP> <6774@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Organization: Quintus Computer Systems, Mountain View, CA
Lines: 27
Summary: globbing in the shell

In article <1890@celtics.UUCP> roger@celtics.UUCP (Roger B.A. Klorese) writes:
> >Because, unless one knows and fully understands that globbing is done by
> >the shell and not the program, one would expect, as with other operating
> >systems...
> 
In article <6774@brl-smoke.ARPA>, gwyn@brl-smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn ) writes:
> In fact that is a key "win" of UNIX over OSes that make applications deal
> with globbing.

Have you ever used TOPS-10?  That was a system where globbing was done by
the program, not the shell.  Result?  No two programs had exactly the
same syntax for file names (some would let you quote strange characters
by writing octal, some wouldn't, some allowed directories, some didn't,
&c &c).  And of course user-programs and commands HAD to use different
syntax...  Doug Gwyn is absolutely right:  doing file-name expansion in
the shell so that EVERY command does it EXACTLY the same way is wonderful.
If rm did its own wild-carding, you'd STILL have the "rm *" problem
(after all, someone might *mean* that) and you'd have the additional
problem of not being quite sure what wild-carding it accepted.  (Ever
tried a System V where some utilities did Berkeleyish ~user expansion,
but nothing else did?  Uniformity!)

Here is another good way to lose files:  restore a tar tape into the
wrong directory.  Wild-cards?  What wild-cards?  It's a really good
way to lose files, because it looks as though you still have them...
With respect to the author of PDTAR, sometimes absolute file names
are exactly the right thing to have on a tar tape.