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Date: Mon,  5 Oct 2009 03:53:32 -0300
Message-ID: <32d987d50910042353r7f3dd271lc4ce388c0d50194a@mail.gmail.com>
From: "Federico G. Benavento" <benavento@gmail.com>
To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans@9fans.net>
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Subject: Re: [9fans] mishandling empty lists - let's fix it
Topicbox-Message-UUID: 7e64781c-ead5-11e9-9d60-3106f5b1d025

On Mon, Oct 5, 2009 at 3:20 AM, Sam Watkins <sam@nipl.net> wrote:
>> you're retaining the inconsistency, but candy-coating it.
>
> No, I'm offering a simple syntax using which one can avoid the inconsiste=
ncy.
> I'm retaining the option to have inconsistent behaviour, for backward
> compatibility, and because some people seem to like it for command-line u=
se.
>
> =C2=A0cat * =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0# still ok, will break if no files match,=
 or a file called -v etc
> =C2=A0cat -- * =C2=A0 # more reliable =C2=A0(so long as * returns empty i=
f it fails to match)
>
> The new syntax comes for free with `--', which is the standard syntax use=
d by
> almost all programs that take options and also process one or more files =
named
> on the command line. =C2=A0`--' is needed so that these programs can cope=
 with
> filenames starting with a dash like `-README-' for example, and not confu=
se
> them with options. =C2=A0All serious scripters should be using this `--' =
already,
> especially if they are doing sysadmin work, otherwise their scripts may b=
reak
> or go on a rampage deleting stuff when some user makes a file called `-rf=
'.
>

the way you usually deal with this is by prefixing the files with "./"
as in rm -fr ./-fr

if that doesn't work you can always use basename(1) or even pwd(1)...

--=20
Federico G. Benavento