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Date:      Thu, 30 Jan 2003 16:13:39 +0100
From:      Ruben de Groot <fbsd-q@bzerk.org>
To:        Jan Grant <Jan.Grant@bristol.ac.uk>
Cc:        Darren Pilgrim <dmp@pantherdragon.org>, Giorgos Keramidas <keramida@ceid.upatras.gr>, questions <questions@FreeBSD.ORG>
Subject:   Re: Why no /dev/one?
Message-ID:  <20030130151339.GA17486@ei.bzerk.org>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.44.0301301150270.17135-100000@mail.ilrt.bris.ac.uk>
References:  <3E390FF3.5020706@pantherdragon.org> <Pine.GSO.4.44.0301301150270.17135-100000@mail.ilrt.bris.ac.uk>

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On Thu, Jan 30, 2003 at 11:53:05AM +0000, Jan Grant typed:
> On Thu, 30 Jan 2003, Darren Pilgrim wrote:
> 
> > Giorgos Keramidas wrote:
> > > On 2003-01-30 00:25, Darren Pilgrim  wrote:
> > >
> > >> Why isn't there a /dev/one device to provide an infinite number of
> > >> all-ones bytes?
> > >
> > >
> > > Because it's easy to get any sequence of equal bytes by using just
> > > /dev/zero and tr(1).  Try this command and check the output of hd(1)
> > > :-)
> > >
> > > $ dd if=/dev/zero bs=512 count=1 | tr '\0' '\777' | hd
> >
> > What I was trying to get at was more a question of if there's some deep
> > technical reason for the lack of a /dev/one beyond the triviality of
> > flipping the bits in a pipe.
> 
> Nobody's implemented it. It'd be trivial; but why would you want it?

And while you're at it, what about /dev/yes and /dev/no to automate 
interactive scripts. Or, if you like the challenge, a /dev/fibonacci
and a /dev/pi would be very welcome :)

> 
> -- 
> jan grant, ILRT, University of Bristol. http://www.ilrt.bris.ac.uk/
> Tel +44(0)117 9287088 Fax +44 (0)117 9287112 http://ioctl.org/jan/
> I am now available for general use under a modified BSD licence.
> 
> 
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