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Date:      Sat, 18 Nov 2000 14:02:23 +0000
From:      David Malone <dwmalone@maths.tcd.ie>
To:        George Reid <greid@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org>
Cc:        Steve Bano <esteban0@excite.com>, freebsd-bugs@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Shell or FreeBSD bug? 
Message-ID:   <200011181402.aa57636@salmon.maths.tcd.ie>
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sat, 18 Nov 2000 13:54:56 GMT." <Pine.BSF.4.21.0011181351590.20548-100000@sobek.nevernet.net> 

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> I'm not sure of the logic of being able to cat directories directly -
> doing so will list filenames (among the garbage) which don't reside in the
> directory cat'ted, but rather in it's subdirectories. Patch follows. Am I
> on crack, and is there a useful reason for catting a directory?

We sometimes use cat, head and tail on directories here 'cos we have
some perl scripts that know how to decode directory contents. There
are some PRs that discuss what standards such as POSIX say about this
too. Personally, I'd be in favor of leaving things the way ther are.

As it says in the perl book: "In accord with the Unix philosophy,
Perl gives you enough rope to hang yourself."

	David.


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