From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
Message-Id: <200311060129.hA61TGnM016172@math.Princeton.EDU>
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: Re: [9fans] page as a presentation tool
In-reply-to: <36000D8C-0FD9-11D8-A204-000A95B984D8@mightycheese.com>
References: <36000D8C-0FD9-11D8-A204-000A95B984D8@mightycheese.com>
From: John Stalker <stalker@Math.Princeton.EDU>
Date: Wed,  5 Nov 2003 20:29:16 -0500
Topicbox-Message-UUID: 802a01fc-eacc-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025


> 'c' doesn't have a regular expression argument.  but anyway, i know
> what you're talking about.

Yes, I realized that shortly after sending it.  If only mailers came
with an undo command!

> there's a notational shorthand that may be the source of your confusion.
>
> x/foo/ command
>
> looks for foo and runs the command.  one useful value of foo is lines:
>
> x/.*\n?/ command
>
> this is so common that it's given a shorthand: an absent pattern:
>
> x command
>
> thus one may write
>
> x g/bar/  command
>
> to run the command on every line containing bar.  but,
>
> x /foo/ command
>
> means for every line, run
>
> 	/foo/ command
>
> which isn't what you want at all.  obviously, this is a huge semantic
> swing for the measly addition of a space. mea culpa.
>
> -rob

It could be much worse.  I once had an unusable system for about 24 hours
because of an extra space in an install script for a program I don't
even use.  In fact it was that experience which convinced me to wipe linux
from my hard disk.
--
John Stalker
Department of Mathematics
Princeton University
(609)258-6469