Date: Mon, 30 Apr 2001 01:59:19 -0500 From: Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org> To: "Juha Saarinen" <juha@saarinen.org> Cc: "Dan Langille" <dan@langille.org>, "Chris Byrnes" <chris@jeah.net>, <stable@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: RE: tail Message-ID: <15085.3399.399194.624320@guru.mired.org> In-Reply-To: <KPECIILENDDLPCNIMLOFIEOLCCAA.juha@saarinen.org> References: <15085.1672.680397.456359@guru.mired.org> <KPECIILENDDLPCNIMLOFIEOLCCAA.juha@saarinen.org>
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Juha Saarinen <juha@saarinen.org> types: > :: The real issue is why should a command raise an error for no good > :: reason. Either a kernel panic or a message is a bit extreme just > :: because a user issued a command that someone else thinks is > :: unusual. Until you can prove that there is no use for the output of > :: tail on a directory, adding code to tail to generate an error in that > :: case is silly. > > If you are a typist with 100% accuracy, there is of course no need for any > error handling in any program. > > Is there any use for the the garbage tail outputs on a directory? If there > is, I won't say anything else... Yes, there is. If you're monitoring a programm that creates a lot of files in a previously empty directory (for example, extracting a tar file into it), then: tail -f targetdir will do the trick, though it would be better to clean up the output (cat -v, maybe). Deciding for the users what actions are an error and which aren't is a *really* nasty habit. Windows does it all to often, which is one of the reasons Windows sucks. Linux - at least some distributions - seems to have picked up the habit from Windows. Oh well. <mike -- Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org> http://www.mired.org/home/mwm/ Independent WWW/Perforce/FreeBSD/Unix consultant, email for more information. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
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