From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: crossd@gmail.com (Dan Cross) Date: Tue, 31 May 2016 11:57:01 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] etymology of read -u In-Reply-To: References: <201605310727.u4V7Rhmp030422@coolidge.cs.Dartmouth.EDU> Message-ID: I asked Jeff Korn (David Korn's son), who in turn asked David Korn who confirmed that 'read -u' comes from ksh and that 'u' stands for 'unit'. - Dan C. Yes, indeed. He says: *I added -u when I added co processes in the mid '80s. The u stands for unit. It was command to talk about file descriptor unit at that time.* On Tue, May 31, 2016 at 6:06 AM, Dan Cross wrote: > Hey, did your dad do `read -u`? > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > From: Doug McIlroy > Date: Tue, May 31, 2016 at 3:27 AM > Subject: [TUHS] etymology of read -u > To: tuhs at minnie.tuhs.org > > > What's the mnmonic significance, if any, of the u in > the bash builtin read -u for reading from a specified > file descriptor? Evidently both f and d had already been > taken in analogy to usage in some other commands. > > The best I can think of is u as in "tape unit", which > was common usage back in the days of READ INPUT TAPE 5. > That would make it the work of an old timer, maybe Dave Korn? > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: