Hi all, I saw this on https://old.reddit.com/r/unix : http://blog.snailtext.com/posts/no-itch-to-scratch.html It's about (the lack of) scratch files in csh. Maybe somebody here know what happened to the feature ? Cheers, Edouard.
Edouard Klein <edouardklein@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I saw this on https://old.reddit.com/r/unix :
>
> http://blog.snailtext.com/posts/no-itch-to-scratch.html
>
> It's about (the lack of) scratch files in csh. Maybe somebody here know
> what happened to the feature ?
>
> Cheers,
>
> Edouard.
From the phraseology in the paper ("The system will remove ....") it sounds
to me like it was not a csh feature at all, but rather that the UCB
systems had a cron job to run something like
find / -name '#*' -mtime +7 -exec rm {} \;
It's easy enough to research this in the archives, if you have the energy.
:-)
HTH,
Arnold
--- Ursprüngliche Nachricht ---
Von: arnold@skeeve.com
Datum: 05.06.2019 14:50:28
An: tuhs@tuhs.org, edouardklein@gmail.com
Betreff: Re: [TUHS] Scratch files in csh
> Edouard Klein <edouardklein@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Hi all,
> >
> > I saw this on https://old.reddit.com/r/unix :
> >
> > http://blog.snailtext.com/posts/no-itch-to-scratch.html
> >
> > It's about (the lack of) scratch files in csh. Maybe somebody here know
>
> > what happened to the feature ?
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> > Edouard.
>
> From the phraseology in the paper ("The system will remove ....")
> it sounds
> to me like it was not a csh feature at all, but rather that the UCB
> systems had a cron job to run something like
>
> find / -name '#*' -mtime +7 -exec rm {} \;
>
> It's easy enough to research this in the archives, if you have the energy.
>
> :-)
>
> HTH,
>
> Arnold
>
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1645 bytes --] Indeed - that's how UCB Systems worked. /tmp was a small scratch disk and anything there was suspect. Scratch files were not a CShell feature, they were a UNIX feature, very much needed on the 16-bit address PDP-11 where it was developed. The idea originally became popular with Dennis's C Compiler which used it for the intermediate files between the passes on the PDP-11. On a large public system like a University, /tmp would fill with cruft. It was traditionally removed on reboot. But that was not good enough for production systems that did not reboot. My memory is that there was a script that was similar to what Aharon suggested that ran in the early hours of the day, although before it ran it created a time_stamp_file with touch(1) set to be 6 hours previous so the script let anything under 6 hours survive using a negation on the -newer time_stamp_file clause. Clem On Wed, Jun 5, 2019 at 8:51 AM <arnold@skeeve.com> wrote: > Edouard Klein <edouardklein@gmail.com> wrote: > > > Hi all, > > > > I saw this on https://old.reddit.com/r/unix : > > > > http://blog.snailtext.com/posts/no-itch-to-scratch.html > > > > It's about (the lack of) scratch files in csh. Maybe somebody here know > > what happened to the feature ? > > > > Cheers, > > > > Edouard. > > From the phraseology in the paper ("The system will remove ....") it sounds > to me like it was not a csh feature at all, but rather that the UCB > systems had a cron job to run something like > > find / -name '#*' -mtime +7 -exec rm {} \; > > It's easy enough to research this in the archives, if you have the energy. > :-) > > HTH, > > Arnold > [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 3352 bytes --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1975 bytes --] I should add, my memory is that the script was done that way before -mtime switch added; but its a tad fuzz -- many, many beers ago. ᐧ On Wed, Jun 5, 2019 at 9:31 AM Clem Cole <clemc@ccc.com> wrote: > Indeed - that's how UCB Systems worked. /tmp was a small scratch disk and > anything there was suspect. Scratch files were not a CShell feature, they > were a UNIX feature, very much needed on the 16-bit address PDP-11 where it > was developed. > > The idea originally became popular with Dennis's C Compiler which used > it for the intermediate files between the passes on the PDP-11. On a > large public system like a University, /tmp would fill with cruft. It was > traditionally removed on reboot. But that was not good enough for > production systems that did not reboot. > > My memory is that there was a script that was similar to what Aharon > suggested that ran in the early hours of the day, although before it ran it > created a time_stamp_file with touch(1) set to be 6 hours previous so the > script let anything under 6 hours survive using a negation on the -newer > time_stamp_file clause. > > Clem > > On Wed, Jun 5, 2019 at 8:51 AM <arnold@skeeve.com> wrote: > >> Edouard Klein <edouardklein@gmail.com> wrote: >> >> > Hi all, >> > >> > I saw this on https://old.reddit.com/r/unix : >> > >> > http://blog.snailtext.com/posts/no-itch-to-scratch.html >> > >> > It's about (the lack of) scratch files in csh. Maybe somebody here know >> > what happened to the feature ? >> > >> > Cheers, >> > >> > Edouard. >> >> From the phraseology in the paper ("The system will remove ....") it >> sounds >> to me like it was not a csh feature at all, but rather that the UCB >> systems had a cron job to run something like >> >> find / -name '#*' -mtime +7 -exec rm {} \; >> >> It's easy enough to research this in the archives, if you have the energy. >> :-) >> >> HTH, >> >> Arnold >> > [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 4320 bytes --]