Date: 19 Sep 2003 08:27:00 +0300 From: "Karlsson Mikael HKI/SOSV" <mikael.karlsson@hel.fi> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re:Re: Cat a directory Message-ID: <JA8AAAAAAgH8RAABYQADV7qgzdhU@master.hel.fi> In-Reply-To: <20030918143306.GF51544@dan.emsphone.com> References: <JA8AAAAAAgFWOQABYQADV7qgzdhU@master.hel.fi> <20030918143306.GF51544@dan.emsphone.com>
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OK! I admit that it isn't THE BIGGEST problem for me BUT it is A problem.= What I ment in my last mail was that it is the biggest problem concerning cat.= Since someone always seems to cat a binary file without having the knowledge of= what it causes. I personally think that some of these tests should be added to the real distributable version of cat that comes with FreeBSD cause I can't be the= only one that this bugs. I mean what could a little more code hurt to the program since cat isn't supposed to read binary files. I could add the code myself to cat's source file and compile it so my users won't be able to cat binary files and stuff like that but what happens to= the thousands of other people that is bugged by the same problem, are they supposed to do the same re-coding that I did=3F Or couldn't this simply be added to= the distribution source file so others won't be bugged. Other *NIX systems seem to have done this to their cat program so why can't FreeBSD=3F and why is this already done to=20less and not cat=3F Dan Nelson wrote (18.9.2003 17:33): >In the last episode (Sep 18), Karlsson Mikael HKI/SOSV said: >> What I just wanted to ask was if it's absolutely necessary for cat to >> be able to work on directories. Or if it would be possible to simply >> add a check to cat that tests if the "file" being opened is a >> directory and then exits with an error message if that is the case. > >The source is in /usr/src/bin/cat; add some code to stat the file and >fail if it's a directory. > >> The biggest problem for me as a "Unix" help-person at a company is to >> always explain to newbies and less experienced users not to cat >> directories as it usually scrambles or locks the whole terminal and >> as they then turn to me to undo their=20mistakes. These small simple >> things give our users bad thoughts about FreeBSD and often drives >> them to use other OSs! > >I find that hard to believe. Do you also want to block catting of >executables, gzipped files, jpeg files, database files,=20and audio >files=3F No OS does that by default. Maybe you should teach them how to >reset their terminals when they cat binary data; ^Jreset^J should work, >assuming your TERM variable is set right. > >-- > Dan Nelson > dnelson@allantgroup.com
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