[comp.lang.c] Portable C and UNIX System Programming misses more than a few things

gnu@hoptoad.UUCP (04/05/87)

In article <1987Mar30.143052.16783@sq.uucp>, msb@sq.UUCP writes:
> Also unfortunately, the new book "Portable C and UNIX System Programming"
> by "J. E. Lapin" misses this one.  (That's why I had to check manuals...)

I found that the book, while useful, does mis-characterize a lot of
features.  I presume that this is mostly because they said they worked
from the documentation, rather than actually testing the systems!  A
shame, for a book where half the page count (130 pages) is the tables
of comparisons, and explanatory notes on the tables.

So far the system comparison I trust best is Guy Harris's, done in the
Sun "System V Enhancements Overview" manual (I think I got that title right),
since he actually had to merge the code...

PS:  If you think you know what options grep, fgrep, and egrep take,
and what pattern metacharacters they handle -- try them!  Note also that
there are or were two grep's (/bin/grep and /usr/ucb/grep) on 4.2BSD
and maybe 4.3.  James Woods may be the only person alive who knows
all this stuff, since he redid it for speed and PD-ness.
-- 
Copyright 1987 John Gilmore; you can redistribute only if your recipients can.
(This is an effort to bend Stargate to work with Usenet, not against it.)
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