[TUHS] Scratch files in csh

[TUHS] Scratch files in csh

[Edouard Klein]

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.

Re: [TUHS] Scratch files in csh

[arnold]

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

Re: [TUHS] Scratch files in csh

[Thomas Paulsen]

--- 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
>

Re: [TUHS] Scratch files in csh

[Clem Cole]

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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
>

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Re: [TUHS] Scratch files in csh

[Clem Cole]

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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
>>
>

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