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From: paul@tut.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.cog-eng,comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: more rm insanity
Message-ID: <2367@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu>
Date: Sat, 28-Nov-87 17:44:06 EST
Article-I.D.: tut.2367
Posted: Sat Nov 28 17:44:06 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 2-Dec-87 03:27:20 EST
References: <1257@boulder.Colorado.EDU> <6738@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Organization: The Ohio State University Dept of Computer and Information Science
Lines: 25
Xref: utgpu comp.cog-eng:326 comp.unix.wizards:5302

In article <6738@brl-smoke.ARPA> gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) ) writes:
< In article <1257@boulder.Colorado.EDU> cdash@boulder.Colorado.EDU
 (Charles Shub) writes:
< >... "rm t*" only the %$*#&^#@ network managed to drop the "t" ...
< 
< Some "network" that must be, to lose data at the user interaction level!

I can think of a very common "network" that does just that: rs232.
Error checking? Why would we want that? 8-) At OSU, we have a laser
printer that talks only rs232, no error detection.  It will drop bits
and bytes quite regularly.  Some types of workstation keyboards talk
to the host using rs232 also.  Then there is the phone problem: this
sort of thing happens quite often to me when using my 1200 baud modem.
My personal opinion is that if someone relies on async without any
error checking (or just parity), they are asking for trouble...

I do not mean to imply that Mr. Shub is not accurately describing the
situation, just pointing to a possible cause.

Actally, this sort of thing has had me thinking about adding a shell
builtin called "rm", which checks all of it's (un expanded) arguments
to see if any are "*", asks for confirmation if they are, then does
the ususal path search (sorta like (ack, bletch, phooy) MessyDos).

		-- Paul