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From: "Bart Schaefer" <schaefer@brasslantern.com>
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Date: Fri, 27 Feb 1998 13:52:45 -0800
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Comments: In reply to Timothy J Luoma <luomat+Lists/Zsh/users@luomat.peak.org>
        "(mime attachment!) debug function: first time weird behavior" (Feb 27,  3:58pm)
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To: Timothy J Luoma <luomat+Lists/Zsh/users@luomat.peak.org>,
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Subject: Re: (mime attachment!) debug function: first time weird behavior
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On Feb 27,  3:58pm, Timothy J Luoma wrote:
> Subject: (mime attachment!) debug function: first time weird behavior
> 
> The first time it is run it says:
> 
> /usr/local/lib/whois/ is a directory
>  whois: Have info archived: /usr/local/lib/whois/
> 
> If I run it again, it works fine.
> 
> I am totally clueless

Er, yes. :-)

        DIR=/usr/local/lib/whois 
        FILE=$DIR/$LOOKFOR 
        LOOKFOR=`echo $* | awk '{print $NF}'` 

Have you considered that perhaps you should assign a value to LOOKFORE
-before- you use it to assign to another variable?

        DIR=/usr/local/lib/whois 
        LOOKFOR=`echo $* | awk '{print $NF}'` 
        FILE=$DIR/$LOOKFOR 

Also, you could use

	LOOKFOR=$*[$#]

instead of that horrible awk.