Re: [9fans] bug or a feature?

[Lyndon Nerenberg <lyndon@orthanc.ab.ca>]

>>>>> "Geoff" == Geoff Collyer <geoff@collyer.net> writes:

    Geoff> I do think that the current behaviour is more helpful than
    Geoff> expanding to a null list would be.  If the pattern doesn't
    Geoff> match, you've very likely made a mistake.  I'd rather have
    Geoff> ``cat ?akefile'' print

    Geoff> 	cat: can't open ?akefile: '?akefile' directory entry not
    Geoff> found

    Geoff> and exit than have it just sit there reading standard input.

But shell globbing is a shell function, therefore the shell should
report non-matches. If you want the application to do the globbing (the
ls and tar examples) you should quote the arguments to protect them from
shell globbing. Or set noglob in the shells that support it.  The fact
that noglob exists says to me that the no-match pass-through globbing
behaviour has been found to be problematic in the past.

--lyndon