Date: Fri, 19 Sep 2003 12:34:34 +0200 From: Ruben de Groot <mail25@bzerk.org> To: Karlsson Mikael HKI/SOSV <mikael.karlsson@hel.fi> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Re: Cat a directory Message-ID: <20030919103434.GA11466@ei.bzerk.org> In-Reply-To: <JA8AAAAAAgH8RAABYQADV7qgzdhU@master.hel.fi> References: <JA8AAAAAAgFWOQABYQADV7qgzdhU@master.hel.fi> <20030918143306.GF51544@dan.emsphone.com> <JA8AAAAAAgH8RAABYQADV7qgzdhU@master.hel.fi>
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On Fri, Sep 19, 2003 at 08:27:00AM +0300, Karlsson Mikael HKI/SOSV typed: > 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. So why don't you for example alias cat to cat -v in your system profile and login scripts? This will display non-printing characters so they are visible and don't mangle terminal settings. > 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. Why not? I regularly use constructs like this: cat somebackup.tgz | ssh someserver "cd /somedir; tar xzf -" > 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? 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? and why is this already done to less and not cat? Because less != cat. It has a completely different functionality. Ruben > 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 mistakes. 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, and audio > >files? 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 > > > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscribe@freebsd.org" > -- The world is coming to an end. Please log off.
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