comp.unix.wizards-in-their-own-minds

Paul Falstad pfalstad at phoenix.Princeton.EDU
Wed Feb 27 15:49:55 AEST 1991


ccastc2 at prism.gatech.EDU (Benjamin H. Cowan) wrote:
>  To all of you out there that answer questions straight forward sans flame,
>I congratulate you on simply answering the questions and getting on with your
>lives in an orderly fashion.  To everybody else, I'll try to think of some
>really dumb questions so that you can get really angry and bring your stress
>level up to self-destruct level.  Maybe you'll die of a heart attack trying
>to respond to such a stupid question.  That would be nice as you would be
>doing us all a favor.

OK!

        1)  How do I remove a file whose name begins with a "-" ? (repost)
        2)  How do I remove a file with funny characters in the filename ?
        3)  How do I get a recursive directory listing?
        4)  How do I get the current directory into my prompt?
        5)  How do I read characters from a terminal without requiring the user
              to hit RETURN?
        6)  How do I read characters from the terminal in a shell script?
        7)  How do I check to see if there are characters to be read without
              actually reading?
        8)  How do I find the name of an open file?
        9)  How do I rename "*.foo" to "*.bar", or change file names
              to lowercase?
        10) Why do I get [some strange error message] when I
              "rsh host command" ?
        11) How do I find out the creation time of a file?
        12) How do I use "rsh" without having the rsh hang around
              until the remote command has completed?
        13) How do I truncate a file?
        14) How do I {set an environment variable, change directory} inside a
              program or shell script and have that change affect my
              current shell?
        15) Why doesn't find's "{}" symbol do what I want?
        16) How do I redirect stdout and stderr separately in csh?
        17) How do I set the permissions on a symbolic link?
        18) When someone refers to 'rn(1)' or 'ctime(3)', what does
              the number in parentheses mean?
        19) What does {awk,grep,fgrep,egrep,biff,cat,gecos,nroff,troff,tee,bss}
              stand for?
        20) How does the gateway between "comp.unix.questions" and the
            "info-unix" mailing list work?
        21) How do I "undelete" a file?
        22) How can a process detect if it's running in the background?
        23) How can an executing program determine its own pathname?
        24) How do I tell inside .cshrc if I'm a login shell?
        25) Why doesn't redirecting a loop work as intended?  (Bourne shell)
        26) How do I use popen() to open a process for reading AND writing?
        27) How do I run 'passwd', 'ftp', 'telnet', 'tip' and other interactive
              programs from a shell script or in the background?
        28) How do I sleep() in a C program for less than one second?
        29) How can I get setuid shell scripts to work?
        30) What are some useful Unix or C books?
        31) How do I construct a shell glob-pattern that matches all files
            except "." and ".." ?
        32) How do I find the last argument in a Bourne shell script?
        33) How do I pronounce "vi" , or "!", or "/*", or ...?

Wizard-level questions:

        34) Where can I get the FAQ?
        35) What does RTFM mean?
        36) How do I read the manual?  "man" doesn't work at my site.
            I tried asking local wizards but they don't know either.
            And Sun doesn't return my phone calls.

Also, how do I post news to comp.unix.wizards?  And how do I read news?
Please post all replies.  Thanks!

--
  Paul Falstad, pfalstad at phoenix.princeton.edu PLink:HYPNOS GEnie:P.FALSTAD
  I think there should be more race prejudice.  <slap> LESS race prejudice.
     Princeton University apologizes for the content of this article.



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