An odd difference between 'cat file' - (nf)
olson at fortune.UUCP
olson at fortune.UUCP
Thu Apr 19 06:09:30 AEST 1984
#R:opus:-36700:fortune:26900048:000:1047
fortune!olson Apr 18 10:17:00 1984
>> I frankly don't know why there is a difference between cat ab* and cat <ab*.
>> It seems to me that file name expansion should be done before anything else.
>
> So tell me, what would you expect to see if ab* matched two or more files?
> Tom Gloger
> ihnp4!ltuxa!tty3b!tag
The same as what the csh or sh does if you give it explicit
names! The other files are passed as arguments to the command;
(e.g. cat > a b), neither csh or sh care where the '> file' occurs in
the command line.
Unfortunately this is NOT what happens. If you have files
a1 and a2, and type cat > a*, sh will (SILENTLY!) create a file
called a* (as complained about in the original note), while csh
complains 'a*: Ambiguous' (even if nonomatch is set).
The basic complaint is that sh does NOT expand wild cards after
>, <, <<, and >> (and their variants), while csh does. How ambiguity
or lack of matches are handled is something else altogether!
Dave Olson, Fortune Systems
UUCP: {ihnp4,ucbvax!amd70}!fortune!olson
ARPA: amd70!fortune!olson at BERKELEY
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