Dot files always first in directory?

[David Monksfield]

In article <11108 at bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> jik at athena.mit.edu (Jonathan I. Kamens) writes:
>
>It it safe to assume when writing a program which manipulates
>directories that . and .. will always be the first two entries in a
>directory?
<<numerous replies (around 23 to date) omitted>>

Whatever happened to the principle that E-MAIL is used for replies
to questions such as this?

I don't mind reading one further posting containing an answer or
set of alternative answers, but having to plough through a score
of articles all either saying "yes" or "no" or giving some
incorrect/inappropriate information (ie. directories as listed by ls)
or correcting the incorrect replies.

This seems a tremendous waste of net bandwidth (IMHO).

So may I suggest that, if you post a question to a newsgroup such
as this one, add a request to the effect:

	"Please send replies by e-mail to <wherever>. If there is
	sufficient interest I will post a summary of the replies."

That goes for this message as well!

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