Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!decwrl!labrea!russell!gandalf From: gandalf@russell.STANFORD.EDU (Juergen Wagner) Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards Subject: Re: globbing in the shell (Was Re: more rm insanity) Message-ID: <889@russell.STANFORD.EDU> Date: Thu, 3-Dec-87 00:33:22 EST Article-I.D.: russell.889 Posted: Thu Dec 3 00:33:22 1987 Date-Received: Mon, 7-Dec-87 05:33:02 EST References: <1257@boulder.Colorado.EDU> <6840002@hpcllmv.HP.COM> Reply-To: gandalf@russell.Stanford.edu (Juergen Wagner) Organization: Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford U. Lines: 18 What you need may be something like the TOPS-20 style of interactive help facility. For many commands you can just hit the '?' key to get some hint on what is supposed to come next. This, however, requires some kind of interface to the program to be invoked. Encountering a line % foo -l frob followed by typing a special character (e.g. '?') your shell could fork "foo -help -l frob" or something similar. This requires a convention on how to request this piece of help information from the program. Another way (much simpler) is to do it in Macintosh-style: for each program keep a (canned text) help file around in a special subdirectory, which is typed out when the help char is encountered. I reckon, either of these facilities is not too difficult to built into existing shells. Juergen Wagner, gandalf@Russell.stanford.edu Center for the Study of Language and Information (CSLI), Stanford CA