----- Original Message ----- From: "Matthew Hunt" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Karlsson Mikael HKI/SOSV" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, September 22, 2003 6:26 PM Subject: Re: Re:Re: Cat a directory
> "cat /bin" on Solaris 9 does exactly the same thing as on FreeBSD; shows > the contents of the directory, just like you're asking it to. Just because > you can't fathom a use for this behavior doesn't mean it's wrong. If you > don't want to see it, don't ask "cat" to show it to you. Answers like this are not uncommon. I guess because it evokes the old "This separates the men from the boys" attitude. However, the purpose of "cat" is to write the contents of a file to STDOUT. And yes, in UNIX pretty much everything is considered a file. But that does not change the fact that people do not experience a directory as a file, and in their use of language also clearly differentiate between the two. You too. Besides, for the regular use of writing the contents of a directory to STDOUT, "ls" was created. Using "cat /bin" is a poor example, because everybody KNOWS /bin is a directory. But how about using a more realistic example? Say, "cat /usr/libexec/sendmail"? That happens to be a directory, but could easily be mistaken for a regular file (when found in a find output, for instance). And then a lot of crap scrolls through your terminal, which is potentially DANGEROUS. Just because you cannot fathom a legitimate situation in which a cat on a directory was unexpected and unintentional, does not mean that situation never occurs. I would like to see a switch added to cat, like "-d", which specifically allows it to operate on directories too, for that once-in-a-million chance I actually need a hex dump on the directory as file. In fact, that behavior is already incorporated in the "rm" command: The options are as follows: -d Attempt to remove directories as well as other types of files. So, in like fashion for "cat": -d Attempt to write the raw contents of a directory too. - Mark _______________________________________________ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
