An odd difference between "cat file" and "cat<file"

[John DeTreville]

	From: alan at allegra.UUCP (Alan S. Driscoll)
	Newsgroups: net.unix
	Subject: Re: An odd difference between "cat file" and "cat<file"
	Date: Tue, 17-Apr-84 16:09:48 EST

	>>  I frankly don't know why there is a difference between cat ab* and
	>>  cat <ab*.  It seems to me that file name expansion should be done
	>>  before anything else.

	>  So tell me, what would you expect to see if ab* matched two or more
	>  files?

	I would have expected an error message, of course.  I would also have
	expected an error message after typing

		cat < abc abd

	In fact, both sh and csh silently ignore 'abc'.  (Surprise!)

-- 
		Alan S. Driscoll
		AT&T Bell Laboratories

Well, not really.  Instead of "cat < abc abd", try "echo < abc abd" and
see what happens.

Cheers,
John ("Illusions Destroyed, Cheap") DeTreville
Bell Labs, Murray Hill