From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
Message-ID: <50440c6f4b6946137968d772dcf08a2a@hamnavoe.com>
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: Re: [9fans] ls, rc question -- proposed change to rc/glob.c
From: Richard Miller <rm@hamnavoe.com>
In-Reply-To: <59B1952A-797D-11D8-8706-000A95B984D8@mightycheese.com>
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Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2004 08:31:25 +0000
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> i don't like changing the shell to mask kernel behavior. it leads
> to surprises.  consider unix shells that `fix' cd in a way that it
> differs from the chdir system call.

But filename pattern matching in the shell is already different from
just reading a directory in the kernel.  By saying 'ls /tmp/*.c'
instead of 'ls /tmp' you are asking for a selection of names.  The
question is how many times to select a name which matches more than
one file.

As David has pointed out, the rc manual at present unambiguously says
"A pattern is replaced by a list of arguments, one for each path
name matched" -- not "one for each file matched".  So if rc isn't
changed, the manual does need to be corrected.

But I would vote for changing rc.  Although I am (after some years
of experience) sufficiently used to unions that I don't find the
behaviour surprising, I do find it irritating: for example, when
doing 'grep XXX *.c' in a union directory produces duplicate output
for files which occur in more than one underlying directory.

-- Richard