cottrell@nbs-vms.ARPA (02/25/85)
/* Doug Gwyn writes... > "cat"'s function is to concatenate files. Period. > > The day this fails to be true is the day "cat" is no longer > a UNIX utility. Yarbles! Great boolshy yarblockles to you!!! This is the kind of thinking that keeps SYS V from being as good as 4.2BSD. `Cat' is alive and well in spite of what DMR said in the BSTJ. Even he can be wrong. jim */
egs@epsilon.UUCP (Ed Sheppard) (02/27/85)
> `Cat' is alive > and well in spite of what DMR said in the BSTJ. Even he can be wrong. > > jim You mean "He" can be wrong, right Jim :-)? Ed Sheppard Bellcore
guy@rlgvax.UUCP (Guy Harris) (02/28/85)
> Doug Gwyn writes... > > "cat"'s function is to concatenate files. Period. > > > > The day this fails to be true is the day "cat" is no longer > > a UNIX utility. > > Yarbles! Great boolshy yarblockles to you!!! This is the kind of > thinking that keeps SYS V from being as good as 4.2BSD. `Cat' is alive > and well in spite of what DMR said in the BSTJ. Even he can be wrong. What kind of thinking? The notion that the availability of N options in "cat" is what makes 4.2BSD great? Sorry, 'taint so. A simple linenumbering utility ("simple" here excludes "nl" - does anybody actually use all the subsubsubsubsection stuff there?) does the job of "cat -n" quite nicely, and a simple visual display utility does the job of "cat -v" equally well. Putting both those functions into "cat" makes as much sense as putting file copying, file deleting, file renaming, directory listing, etc., etc. into a program named, for the sake of argument, "PIP". Besides, System V has, unfortunately, picked up "cat -v". Guy Harris {seismo,ihnp4,allegra}!rlgvax!guy
jack@boring.UUCP (03/01/85)
Well, this discussion gives me a chance to give one of
my favorite flames about unix utilities :
WHY DID THEY TAKE THE '-n' OPTION OUT OF PR AT THE V6->V7
TRANSITION??????
In 99.9% of the cases, If I want line numbers, I am making
a listing. pr -n ... ^ lpr is great, so.
Nowadays, I have to do "num foo.c ^ pr -n -h foo.c ^ lpr", or
something ridiculous like that.
Putting a -n option on cat is stupid, but it isn't neraly
as stupid as taking it out of pr, where it belongs.
--
Jack Jansen, {decvax|philabs|seismo}!mcvax!jack
Notice new, improved, faster address ^^^^^stevel@haddock.UUCP (03/05/85)
> WHY DID THEY TAKE THE '-n' OPTION OUT OF PR AT THE V6->V7 > TRANSITION?????? > Jack Jansen, {decvax|philabs|seismo}!mcvax!jack Real UNIX has pr -n. Real UNIX being System III and System V :-). Steve Ludlum, decvax!yale-co!ima!stevel, {ihnp4!cbosgd}!ima!stevel decwrl!decvax!cca!ima!stevel, {uscvax|ucla-vax|vortex}!ism780!stevel Interactive Systems, 7th floor, 441 Stuart st, Boston, MA 02116; 617-247-1155