From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
From: David Tolpin <dvd@davidashen.net>
Message-Id: <200403182300.i2IN0p5T095713@adat.davidashen.net>
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: Re: [9fans] ls, rc question
In-Reply-To: <405A1D45.9030400@swtch.com>
Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2004 03:00:51 +0400
Topicbox-Message-UUID: 37578796-eacd-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025


I am not asking why there are two file names in the directory listing. I understand it.

I think that behaviours of rc and ls are confusing. I would either expect rc's globbing
to only match one path name, or ls to display all files.

man rc says 'A pattern is replaced by a list of arguments, one
for each path name matched'. Not for each directory entry. For
each path name. There is one path name /dev/user for two files.

cpu% ls -q /dev|grep user
(0000000000000015 0 00) /dev/user
(000000000000000c 0 00) /dev/user

Globbing expands this to two elements:

cpu% echo /dev/user*
/dev/user /dev/user

I think this is not what the manual says. 

Then,

cpu% ls -q /dev/user*
(0000000000000015 0 00) /dev/user
(0000000000000015 0 00) /dev/user

I understand why it is so. But I think that consistency is sacrificed
for simplicity. Either rc should do what the manual says and return
one match for /dev/user* (so that /dev/user* and /dev/user is the same
thing), or ls -q /dev/user should recursively list all directory
entries matching the path name.

David Tolpin