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Date:      Fri, 17 May 1996 23:22:47 +0200 (SAT)
From:      Robert Nordier <rnordier@iafrica.com>
To:        wollman@lcs.mit.edu (Garrett Wollman)
Cc:        questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: using rcs with `what'
Message-ID:  <199605172122.XAA00727@eac.iafrica.com>
In-Reply-To: <9605172032.AA07198@halloran-eldar.lcs.mit.edu> from "Garrett Wollman" at May 17, 96 04:32:11 pm

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Garrett Wollman wrote:
> 
> <<On Fri, 17 May 1996 22:15:44 +0200 (SAT), Robert Nordier <rnordier@iafrica.com> said:
> 
> > Garrett Wollman wrote:
> > [...]
> >> We probably should not even be shipping `what'; there are too many
> >> interrogatives used already.
> 
> > How do you propose people find sccsid's without it?
> 
> Why would you want to fine sccsids when you haven't got SCCS?

Well, sccsid '@(#)' convention can be useful if you simply want
to embed any comment-style information in a file.

For example, I remember one coding standards stylesheet used to
require

   :
   # @(#) <purpose>
   # Author: <author>, <date> [...]

for shell scripts.

Admittedly, you can 'grep' for that, but with 'what' you don't have
to worry about file type.

One point is: any particular version control system is a development
tool and is likely to be unavailable at an end-user site.  But it
is easy enough to say on the phone, "Run 'what' and tell me what
version of the 'foo' library the program's using."

It's not a big thing, either way, but 'what' probably has its niche.

-- 
Robert Nordier



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