command line options (UNIX-specific)

[Jim Hutchison]

In article <14020029 at hpisod2.HP.COM# decot at hpisod2.HP.COM (Dave Decot) writes:
[..] #and change our kernels to refuse
#to create files whose names begin with a hyphen or contain
#non-printing characters (unless special arrangements are made
#by the user to permit it)?
#
#There is no particular advantage for users to be allowed to
#use such filenames, but their accidental or naive creation has
#historically and provably caused a good deal of trouble for
#(even advanced) users.  See "a rm question" elsewhere in
#this newsgroup for yet another example.

Well, how about Kanji Unix?  Kanji is kind of cute, double letter codes and
an escape sequence, would be nice if you could just let that cuddly little
JIS (sp?) kanji escape sequence sit up front so that the rest could be seen
as a Kanji string.  This may not be important to you, but why garbage up
the operating system with coddling for the user?  That is what *user*
interfaces are for.  Write a shell and a clib, that should get you most of
the way, and you won't even have to alter any of the nice resource managing
code...

% rm -i *

-or-

% dired

-or- (on this sun, tr and echo do vary)

% foreach file ( * )
> mv -i $i `echo -n $i | tr -cs '[a-zA-Z0-9]' X`
> end

No problem, just Unix.

    Jim Hutchison   		UUCP:	{dcdwest,ucbvax}!cs!net1!hutch
		    		ARPA:	Hutch at net1.ucsd.edu
Disclaimer:  I'm dead, really, deceased, this is a recording.