Re: Bash commands: maybe they want to drive us crazy?

From: Keith Keller (kkeller-usenet_at_wombat.san-francisco.ca.us)
Date: 07/01/04 

Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2004 22:21:25 -0700

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In article <10e72bis43kvd05@corp.supernews.com>, GP wrote:
> Bill Unruh wrote:
>
>> ]find -iname . "*IPv6*"
>>
>> -iname is an option which takes one argument. That argument to the option in this case is
>> '*IPV6*' (NOT "*IPv6*" because the latter would cause the shell to expand
>> the *s, not find)
>
> Ok. Let's examine this first argument. Mr Unruh pretends that
>
> double quotes cause the shell to expand the *
>
> whereas
>
> single quotes would cause the find command to expand the *
>
> Which means that a shell command and the shell itself are two very different
> things.

What an incredibly stupid statement, since as you've already been told,
find is *NOT* a bash command! It's a program, whose syntax is the
same no matter what the shell. The only difference is how the shell
sends arguments to the command; if there are characters special to the
shell in the argument, the shell might interpret them before sending
them off to find.

> So, please cd to /etc and issue the following commands:
>
> find . -iname '*net*'
> find . -iname "*net*"

Try these:

find /etc -iname *net*
find /etc -iname \*net\*

I bet find likes one but not the other. I wonder why?

> What's the difference? None! Why? Because, since there is no $ , \ or `` inside
> the double quotes, it is exactly equivalent to single quotes.

For once, you got something right...

> Conclusion:
>
> Contrary to the pretention of Mr Unruh, there is absolutely no difference
> between a shell and a shell command interpretation.

...but, even granting your stupid error that find is a bash command,
you still screwed up, as usual. bash *does* interpret the command line
before sending it to find, as my examples above clearly show. Bill's
mistake was only in how bash interprets, not in that it does so.

> This being a very basic matter, either Mr Unruh is a dummy posing as an expert
> or he's a troll. Lady and gents, the choice is yours.

As I've said before, you're either a troll or an idiot. Bill made an
honest mistake--how do you possibly explain your repeated displays
of idiocy? So, I guess my choice is that you're a complete imbecile.

Let's revisit your idiotic find command, shall we?

find -iname . "*IPv6"

Bill corrected your egregious error in transposing -iname and ., yet
you absolutely refuse to recognize your blatant error, and instead
choose to denigrate Bill for a much less obvious and much more
confusing error.

IOW, if you're going to troll, at least show the barest hint of a
clue when you do so.

> What? Yes, of course, Mr Unruh, you may engrave my name 'till' the end of times
> in your kill file. My pleasure! So can you, Mr Davidson. I don't need your
> /advice/ and I do believe nobody here does.

You're rejecting *Floyd's* advice? You are *so* screwed.

In the interests of full disclosure, I admit that I once had Floyd
killfiled, and still have Bill killfiled. But neither of them
deserve to have their technical expertise questioned by an habitual
kook like GP. I hope this helps to explain my, uh, unfriendly tone.
Now that I've alerted the group to what I consider to be a clueless
git, I'll go back to laughing my ass off at his utter lack of any
understanding whatsoever. Of course, you're free to come to your
own conclusions. :)

- --keith

- --
kkeller-usenet@wombat.san-francisco.ca.us
(try just my userid to email me)
AOLSFAQ=http://wombat.san-francisco.ca.us/cgi-bin/fom

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