Re: [9fans] ls, rc question -- proposed change to rc/glob.c

[rog@vitanuova.com]

> > come to think of it, if i expect {rm -r a} to empty (and delete) `a'
> > might i not expect {rm a/*} and especially {rm -r a/*}
> > to remove all removable names from `a'?
> 
> seems right. There's a lot of subtleties to the union thing. I think that 
> Plan 9's decision (present it to the users in its entirety) is the right 
> one.

it's a trade-off.  some things work better, some things work worse.

having said that, the above is the only occasion i've seen that makes
use of the duplicate names in any kind of a sensible manner (but
remove (and rename) is a strange operation in a union directory anyway
- remove("x") does not necessarily mean that "x" goes away).  i
excluded write operations originally, and marked the rm behaviour as
"questionable" because i believe it can be argued both ways.  union
directories themselves cannot be removed, so one's on fairly shaky
ground trying to rm -r them...

most tools read a directory in order to enumerate its accessible
items.  in that context, seeing unique names only is more correct.