Juha Saarinen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> types:
> :: Well, yes, tail on a directory is a silly thing to do unthinkingly.
> :: But the silly one isn't tail, it's the user who issued the command
> :: without thinking.
> So the butter-fingered luser must be punished?
Having to live with the consequences of their own buttery fingers is
punishment enough. Running tail on a file that's not ascii text -
whether it's a directory, a binary, or something else - usually does
strange things to the terminal, which will do.
> :: More proof that linux isn't Unix.
> ::
> :: On Unix, it's generally more important to make sure the user can shoot
> :: anything they want than it is to keep the user from shooting
> :: themselves in the foot.
> In that case, tail should cause a kernel panic if you try to run it on a
> directory. If you really want to wallow in pendantry, please remember that
> "shooting yourself in the foot" isn't the right metaphor in this context.
Considering that it's the result of being butter-fingered, it seems
highly appropriate.
The real issue is why should a command raise an error for no good
reason. Either a kernel panic or a message is a bit extreme just
because a user issued a command that someone else thinks is
unusual. Until you can prove that there is no use for the output of
tail on a directory, adding code to tail to generate an error in that
case is silly.
<mike
--
Mike Meyer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.mired.org/home/mwm/
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