K&P \"pick\"

[USAFAS]

Hi,

	I'm trying to install the pick command from page 187
of "The Unix Programming Environment", by Kernighan & Pike.
I've included the routines "ttyin" and "system" (the latter
being the improved version 224 of K&P).  When I try to use
"pick", I get the response "can't open file /dev/tty mode r"
an error message from "efopen" (from page 182 (another routine
I included from K&P)).  This error is returned when
fopen(file, mode) returns NULL.

	I did an "ls -l" on /dev/tty and got the following
setting (or something close--unfortunately, I didn't copy it
down):

	M-wx-ws-w-  (with a very large file size)

	I asked my system administrator to execute a

		"chmod o+r /dev/tty"

	He executed a chmod (I am not sure that it was as
specified above) and a "ls -l" now returns

	crw-rw-rw  root  0

	Unfortunately, "pick" still returns the same error, and
when I try the shell version of "pick" from page 160 of K&P, an
error is returned telling me that there is no such device
as /dev/tty.

	I have two questions.  First, what does that capital M
mean in the ls above.  Second, why doesn't "pick" work?

	Thanks for any pointers,

		hugh dempsey
	hugh at brl