On 2022-04-12, Ted Nolan <tednolan> <ted@loft.tnolan.com> wrote:

> Yep, on a FreeBSD laptop right now using *real* vi -- none of this vim nonsense
> I have to use on Linux.

That's actually nvi and not "real vi".

Original vi, updated to build on modern systems, is available on
FreeBSD as a port/package. Look for "2bsd-vi".

Anyway, as everybody knows, the standard Unix editor is ed(1).

--
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber naddy@mips.inka.de

In article <ac004e5d-bb4b-4108-a084-c1fd64fe3823n@googlegroups.com>,
pete...@gmail.com <petertrei@gmail.com> wrote:
>On Tuesday, April 12, 2022 at 5:57:32 PM UTC-4, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:
>> In article <t34qmq$9nc$1...@dont-email.me>,
>> Michael F. Stemper <michael...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >On 12/04/2022 16.12, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:
>> >> In article <t34pok$vau$4...@dont-email.me>,
>> >> Michael F. Stemper <michael...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >>> On 11/04/2022 22.17, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:
>> >
>> >>>> Yep, on a FreeBSD laptop right now using *real* vi -- none of this vim
>> >>> nonsense
>> >>>> I have to use on Linux.
>> >>>
>> >>> What distro doesn't have vi? Ubuntu only has vi:
>> >>>
>> >>
>> >> You may think that, but do
>> >>
>> >> vi --version
>> >
>> >That's a rather lengthy "--version" text. And, yes, you're
>> >right, it is vim. The fact that I've been using Ubuntu since
>> >2009 without ever noticing any difference between it and the
>> >vi that I started using on AIX in 1992 tells me that I don't
>> >need to lose any sleep over the purity of its essence.
>> >
>> If you're happy, that's great. I get perturbed when something I've
>> trained my fingers to do for 20 years gets a different result.
>
>I've been using emacs for 40+ years. I can do a minimal level of
>vi, but will put emacs on any system I use more than a day.
>
>Unfortunately, a good chunk of my job involves VMs that live
>a few hours, max.
>
>Pt

I used to install emacs so I could edit strings in compiled programs.
Haven't had to do that for a while..
--
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..

In article <slrnt5c19p.2gfn.naddy@lorvorc.mips.inka.de>,
Christian Weisgerber <naddy@mips.inka.de> wrote:
>On 2022-04-12, Ted Nolan <tednolan> <ted@loft.tnolan.com> wrote:
>
>> Yep, on a FreeBSD laptop right now using *real* vi -- none of this vim
>nonsense
>> I have to use on Linux.
>
>That's actually nvi and not "real vi".
>

It's close:

nex/nvi are intended as bug-for-bug compatible
replacements for the original Fourth Berkeley Software Distribution
(4BSD) ex and vi programs.

>Original vi, updated to build on modern systems, is available on
>FreeBSD as a port/package. Look for "2bsd-vi".
>

I may check that out sometime.

>Anyway, as everybody knows, the standard Unix editor is ed(1).
>

Yep. I still write ed scripts several times a year.
--
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..

On 13/04/2022 09:03, Christian Weisgerber wrote:
> On 2022-04-12, Ted Nolan <tednolan> <ted@loft.tnolan.com> wrote:
>
>> Yep, on a FreeBSD laptop right now using *real* vi -- none of this vim nonsense
>> I have to use on Linux.
>
> That's actually nvi and not "real vi".
>
> Original vi, updated to build on modern systems, is available on
> FreeBSD as a port/package. Look for "2bsd-vi".
>
> Anyway, as everybody knows, the standard Unix editor is ed(1).
>
No, it's "cat - > abc" :-)

Cheers,
Gary B-)

On 13/04/2022 07:06, Michael F. Stemper wrote:
> On 11/04/2022 22.02, Gary R. Schmidt wrote:
>> On 12/04/2022 11:16, James Nicoll wrote:
>
>>> I still use vi...
>>
>> Some of my UNIX systems only have vi, but that's because
>> $(CORPORATION)/$(BANK)/$(GOVERNMENT_DEPARTMENT) spent so very, very,
>> very much with IBM or HP or Sun that they intend to run those machines
>> until there is only rust left on the Data Centre floor.  (Not that
>> they don't do the same with Linux or Winderrs, I have to keep RHEL5
>> and W2K3 boxes alive (and off the network) just for them.  At least I
>> got rid of the Solaris 2.5 (yes, 2.5, not 2.5.1) boxes in 2015.)
>>
>> Although recent Solaris versions have vim as a replacement for vi:
>> $ ll /bin/vi
>>     1 lrwxrwxrwx   1 root     root           3 Jul 14  2019 /bin/vi ->
>> vim*
>>
>> Anything that doesn't have vi/vim on it that will be around for more
>> than five minutes gets vim installed quick smart!  (And Cygwin if it's
>> Winderrs.)
>
> I even used vi on DOS.
>
It was part of a UNIX toolkit that I remember getting back then - can't
remember the name now, but it had a real tar that would access floppies
correctly, and awk and sed and pack and ed and a proper sh and all the
goodies.

And being 16-bit, it was very like being on Version 7 on a PDP-11!! :-)

Cheers,
Gary B-)

Gary R. Schmidt <grschmidt@acm.org> schrieb:
> On 13/04/2022 09:03, Christian Weisgerber wrote:
>> On 2022-04-12, Ted Nolan <tednolan> <ted@loft.tnolan.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Yep, on a FreeBSD laptop right now using *real* vi -- none of this vim nonsense
>>> I have to use on Linux.
>>
>> That's actually nvi and not "real vi".
>>
>> Original vi, updated to build on modern systems, is available on
>> FreeBSD as a port/package. Look for "2bsd-vi".
>>
>> Anyway, as everybody knows, the standard Unix editor is ed(1).
>>
> No, it's "cat - > abc" :-)
^^^

What's that minus sign doing there?

On 12/04/2022 18.03, Christian Weisgerber wrote:
> On 2022-04-12, Ted Nolan <tednolan> <ted@loft.tnolan.com> wrote:
>
>> Yep, on a FreeBSD laptop right now using *real* vi -- none of this vim nonsense
>> I have to use on Linux.
>
> That's actually nvi and not "real vi".
>
> Original vi, updated to build on modern systems, is available on
> FreeBSD as a port/package. Look for "2bsd-vi".
>
> Anyway, as everybody knows, the standard Unix editor is ed(1).

I've written more than one ksh script using cat.

--
Michael F. Stemper
Nostalgia just ain't what it used to be.

On 13/04/2022 01.02, Thomas Koenig wrote:
> Gary R. Schmidt <grschmidt@acm.org> schrieb:
>> On 13/04/2022 09:03, Christian Weisgerber wrote:
>>> On 2022-04-12, Ted Nolan <tednolan> <ted@loft.tnolan.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Yep, on a FreeBSD laptop right now using *real* vi -- none of this vim nonsense
>>>> I have to use on Linux.
>>>
>>> That's actually nvi and not "real vi".
>>>
>>> Original vi, updated to build on modern systems, is available on
>>> FreeBSD as a port/package. Look for "2bsd-vi".
>>>
>>> Anyway, as everybody knows, the standard Unix editor is ed(1).
>>>
>> No, it's "cat - > abc" :-)
>
> What's that minus sign doing there?

If you're not being facetious, here's a line from the man page:

With no FILE, or when FILE is -, read standard input.

I don't see the point, but that's how it is.

--
Michael F. Stemper
Nostalgia just ain't what it used to be.

On 2022-04-13, Michael F. Stemper <michael.stemper@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 13/04/2022 01.02, Thomas Koenig wrote:
>> Gary R. Schmidt <grschmidt@acm.org> schrieb:
>>> On 13/04/2022 09:03, Christian Weisgerber wrote:
>>>> On 2022-04-12, Ted Nolan <tednolan> <ted@loft.tnolan.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Yep, on a FreeBSD laptop right now using *real* vi -- none of this vim nonsense
>>>>> I have to use on Linux.
>>>>
>>>> That's actually nvi and not "real vi".
>>>>
>>>> Original vi, updated to build on modern systems, is available on
>>>> FreeBSD as a port/package. Look for "2bsd-vi".
>>>>
>>>> Anyway, as everybody knows, the standard Unix editor is ed(1).
>>>>
>>> No, it's "cat - > abc" :-)
>>
>> What's that minus sign doing there?
>
> If you're not being facetious, here's a line from the man page:
>
> With no FILE, or when FILE is -, read standard input.
>
> I don't see the point, but that's how it is.

Sorry, the "-" option isn't needed in that command and everybody knows
that proper UNIX must be as terse as possible!

Original UNIX "cat" didn't have the "-" option in any case (though it
was in Version 6 when I was learning it.)

Chris

Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de> writes:
>Gary R. Schmidt <grschmidt@acm.org> schrieb:
>> On 13/04/2022 09:03, Christian Weisgerber wrote:
>>> On 2022-04-12, Ted Nolan <tednolan> <ted@loft.tnolan.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Yep, on a FreeBSD laptop right now using *real* vi -- none of this vim nonsense
>>>> I have to use on Linux.
>>>
>>> That's actually nvi and not "real vi".
>>>
>>> Original vi, updated to build on modern systems, is available on
>>> FreeBSD as a port/package. Look for "2bsd-vi".
>>>
>>> Anyway, as everybody knows, the standard Unix editor is ed(1).
>>>
>> No, it's "cat - > abc" :-)
> ^^^
>
>What's that minus sign doing there?

A context sensitive token that means "stdin" in this case.

On 2022-04-13, Ted Nolan <tednolan> <ted@loft.tnolan.com> wrote:

>>> Yep, on a FreeBSD laptop right now using *real* vi -- none of this vim
>>nonsense
>>> I have to use on Linux.
>>
>>That's actually nvi and not "real vi".
>
> It's close:
>
> nex/nvi are intended as bug-for-bug compatible
> replacements for the original Fourth Berkeley Software Distribution
> (4BSD) ex and vi programs.

It also has numerous extensions.

* The one that is going to hit many people hard is that original
vi does not support cursor movement in insert mode.
(Various historical terminals, such as the Wyse 30 family, did
not distinguish between cursor-left and rubout. Both keys produce
^H.)
* nvi's multi-level undo is not in vi.
* nvi supports multiple editing windows, although I suspect most
nvi users aren't even aware of this.
Etc.

>>Anyway, as everybody knows, the standard Unix editor is ed(1).
>
> Yep. I still write ed scripts several times a year.

I occasionally use ed(1) interactively in restricted environments.
The prototypical example is when you have screwed up your /etc/fstab
and /usr doesn't get mounted. A more specialized use is on the
OpenBSD install media. The OpenBSD installer is a ksh script, and
I have had reason to tweak/debug it in the install environment,
where ed(1) is the only editor available. Anyway, if you know the
basics of sed(1), then simple edits with ed(1) are straightforward.

--
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber naddy@mips.inka.de

On Tue, 12 Apr 2022 16:04:06 -0500, "Michael F. Stemper"
<michael.stemper@gmail.com> wrote:

>On 11/04/2022 18.33, Default User wrote:
>> On Monday, April 11, 2022 at 11:58:41 AM UTC-5, Thomas Koenig wrote:
>>
>>> At least, with clang-format, it is now possible to properly
>>> re-indent code.
>>
>> Tools have definitely improved over the years. One of the reasons I liked Whitesmiths and disliked K&R when I was starting was that I would print out source and use a ruler to draw lines down the code blocks to look for missing, extra, or misaligned braces.
>
>Yeah, K&R-style indentation is horrible human-factors engineering.

Strange.

I have no problem connecting the "}" to the "if" in this sort of
thing:
if( <whatever> ) {
<do something, perhaps a couple pages of something>
}

I just put the cursor on the "}" and ... move upward.

And ruled lines (from "if" to "}") would work just as well.

Of course, this requires a text editor that keeps the cursor position
across blank lines. Notepad (and Agent, which is why my example isn't
more complicated) won't do this with blank lines inside the block.
--
"I begin to envy Petronius."
"I have envied him long since."

Michael F. Stemper <michael.stemper@gmail.com> schrieb:
> On 13/04/2022 01.02, Thomas Koenig wrote:
>> Gary R. Schmidt <grschmidt@acm.org> schrieb:
>>> On 13/04/2022 09:03, Christian Weisgerber wrote:
>>>> On 2022-04-12, Ted Nolan <tednolan> <ted@loft.tnolan.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Yep, on a FreeBSD laptop right now using *real* vi -- none of this vim nonsense
>>>>> I have to use on Linux.
>>>>
>>>> That's actually nvi and not "real vi".
>>>>
>>>> Original vi, updated to build on modern systems, is available on
>>>> FreeBSD as a port/package. Look for "2bsd-vi".
>>>>
>>>> Anyway, as everybody knows, the standard Unix editor is ed(1).
>>>>
>>> No, it's "cat - > abc" :-)
>>
>> What's that minus sign doing there?
>
> If you're not being facetious, here's a line from the man page:
>
> With no FILE, or when FILE is -, read standard input.

So, why specify it at all? It's not the UNIX way (and "cat
coming back from Berkeley waving flags" was one of the things that
Kernighan complained about, IIRC).

On 4/12/2022 10:51 PM, Gary R. Schmidt wrote:
> On 13/04/2022 07:06, Michael F. Stemper wrote:
>> On 11/04/2022 22.02, Gary R. Schmidt wrote:
>>> On 12/04/2022 11:16, James Nicoll wrote:
>>
>>>> I still use vi...
>>>
>>> Some of my UNIX systems only have vi, but that's because
>>> $(CORPORATION)/$(BANK)/$(GOVERNMENT_DEPARTMENT) spent so very, very,
>>> very much with IBM or HP or Sun that they intend to run those
>>> machines until there is only rust left on the Data Centre floor.
>>> (Not that they don't do the same with Linux or Winderrs, I have to
>>> keep RHEL5 and W2K3 boxes alive (and off the network) just for them.
>>> At least I got rid of the Solaris 2.5 (yes, 2.5, not 2.5.1) boxes in
>>> 2015.)
>>>
>>> Although recent Solaris versions have vim as a replacement for vi:
>>> $ ll /bin/vi
>>>     1 lrwxrwxrwx   1 root     root           3 Jul 14  2019 /bin/vi
>>> -> vim*
>>>
>>> Anything that doesn't have vi/vim on it that will be around for more
>>> than five minutes gets vim installed quick smart!  (And Cygwin if
>>> it's Winderrs.)
>>
>> I even used vi on DOS.
>>
> It was part of a UNIX toolkit that I remember getting back then - can't
> remember the name now, but it had a real tar that would access floppies
> correctly, and awk and sed and pack and ed and a proper sh and all the
> goodies.
>
> And being 16-bit, it was very like being on Version 7 on a PDP-11!!  :-)
>
>     Cheers,
>         Gary    B-)

Probably The Thompson Toolkit which was written in 16 assembly for
speed. And then ported to 32 bit assembly, for speed. I still use it
on Windows. It is about a 100 times faster than cygwin.
http://www.tasoft.com/

Lynn

Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de> writes:
>Michael F. Stemper <michael.stemper@gmail.com> schrieb:
>> On 13/04/2022 01.02, Thomas Koenig wrote:
>>> Gary R. Schmidt <grschmidt@acm.org> schrieb:
>>>> On 13/04/2022 09:03, Christian Weisgerber wrote:
>>>>> On 2022-04-12, Ted Nolan <tednolan> <ted@loft.tnolan.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Yep, on a FreeBSD laptop right now using *real* vi -- none of this vim nonsense
>>>>>> I have to use on Linux.
>>>>>
>>>>> That's actually nvi and not "real vi".
>>>>>
>>>>> Original vi, updated to build on modern systems, is available on
>>>>> FreeBSD as a port/package. Look for "2bsd-vi".
>>>>>
>>>>> Anyway, as everybody knows, the standard Unix editor is ed(1).
>>>>>
>>>> No, it's "cat - > abc" :-)
>>>
>>> What's that minus sign doing there?
>>
>> If you're not being facetious, here's a line from the man page:
>>
>> With no FILE, or when FILE is -, read standard input.
>
>So, why specify it at all? It's not the UNIX way (and "cat
>coming back from Berkeley waving flags" was one of the things that
>Kernighan complained about, IIRC).

The use of '-' to indicate stdin has been part of the Unix command
syntax for as long as I can remember. It's standardized by the
Open Group/POSIX as part of the utility guidelines.

As far back as Unix V7, the 'cat' command accepted option flags.

/*
* Concatenate files.
*/

#include <stdio.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/stat.h>

char stdbuf[BUFSIZ];

main(argc, argv)
char **argv;
{ int fflg = 0;
register FILE *fi;
register c;
int dev, ino = -1;
struct stat statb;

setbuf(stdout, stdbuf);
for( ; argc>1 && argv[1][0]=='-'; argc--,argv++) {
switch(argv[1][1]) {
case 0:
break;
case 'u':
setbuf(stdout, (char *)NULL);
continue;
}
break;
}

On 14/04/2022 03:53, Thomas Koenig wrote:
> Michael F. Stemper <michael.stemper@gmail.com> schrieb:
>> On 13/04/2022 01.02, Thomas Koenig wrote:
>>> Gary R. Schmidt <grschmidt@acm.org> schrieb:
>>>> On 13/04/2022 09:03, Christian Weisgerber wrote:
>>>>> On 2022-04-12, Ted Nolan <tednolan> <ted@loft.tnolan.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Yep, on a FreeBSD laptop right now using *real* vi -- none of this vim nonsense
>>>>>> I have to use on Linux.
>>>>>
>>>>> That's actually nvi and not "real vi".
>>>>>
>>>>> Original vi, updated to build on modern systems, is available on
>>>>> FreeBSD as a port/package. Look for "2bsd-vi".
>>>>>
>>>>> Anyway, as everybody knows, the standard Unix editor is ed(1).
>>>>>
>>>> No, it's "cat - > abc" :-)
>>>
>>> What's that minus sign doing there?
>>
>> If you're not being facetious, here's a line from the man page:
>>
>> With no FILE, or when FILE is -, read standard input.
>
> So, why specify it at all? It's not the UNIX way (and "cat
> coming back from Berkeley waving flags" was one of the things that
> Kernighan complained about, IIRC).

Because I like my code to be self-documenting, and there're far too many
newbies who don't know that "cat" with no parameters reads from stdin -
I was at a Linux installfest-thingie a decade or two ago, and one of the
/instructors/ asked me, "How do I get out of 'cat' when I've hit <CR>
before I typed the file name".

Cheers,
Gary B-)

On 14/04/2022 04:04, Lynn McGuire wrote:
> On 4/12/2022 10:51 PM, Gary R. Schmidt wrote:
>> On 13/04/2022 07:06, Michael F. Stemper wrote:
>>> On 11/04/2022 22.02, Gary R. Schmidt wrote:
>>>> On 12/04/2022 11:16, James Nicoll wrote:
>>>
>>>>> I still use vi...
>>>>
>>>> Some of my UNIX systems only have vi, but that's because
>>>> $(CORPORATION)/$(BANK)/$(GOVERNMENT_DEPARTMENT) spent so very, very,
>>>> very much with IBM or HP or Sun that they intend to run those
>>>> machines until there is only rust left on the Data Centre floor.
>>>> (Not that they don't do the same with Linux or Winderrs, I have to
>>>> keep RHEL5 and W2K3 boxes alive (and off the network) just for them.
>>>> At least I got rid of the Solaris 2.5 (yes, 2.5, not 2.5.1) boxes in
>>>> 2015.)
>>>>
>>>> Although recent Solaris versions have vim as a replacement for vi:
>>>> $ ll /bin/vi
>>>>     1 lrwxrwxrwx   1 root     root           3 Jul 14  2019 /bin/vi
>>>> -> vim*
>>>>
>>>> Anything that doesn't have vi/vim on it that will be around for more
>>>> than five minutes gets vim installed quick smart!  (And Cygwin if
>>>> it's Winderrs.)
>>>
>>> I even used vi on DOS.
>>>
>> It was part of a UNIX toolkit that I remember getting back then -
>> can't remember the name now, but it had a real tar that would access
>> floppies correctly, and awk and sed and pack and ed and a proper sh
>> and all the goodies.
>>
>> And being 16-bit, it was very like being on Version 7 on a PDP-11!!  :-)
>>
>>      Cheers,
>>          Gary    B-)
>
> Probably The Thompson Toolkit which was written in 16 assembly for
> speed.  And then ported to 32 bit assembly, for speed.  I still use it
> on Windows.  It is about a 100 times faster than cygwin.
>    http://www.tasoft.com/
>
Might be, but I'd have to dig out a copy of the "C User's Journal" or
the like from the boxes of journals - and I don't, off the top of my
head, recall if I kept them.
Probably went with all the CACM and SIGSOFT and the like when I moved at
the end of last century. (But I *did* keep my copy of CALGO with the
microfiche sheets, I wonder who's got a reader these days?? ;-) )

Cheers,
Gary B-)

On 13/04/2022 23:09, Michael F. Stemper wrote:
> On 13/04/2022 01.02, Thomas Koenig wrote:
>> Gary R. Schmidt <grschmidt@acm.org> schrieb:
>>> On 13/04/2022 09:03, Christian Weisgerber wrote:
>>>> On 2022-04-12, Ted Nolan <tednolan> <ted@loft.tnolan.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Yep, on a FreeBSD laptop right now using *real* vi -- none of this
>>>>> vim nonsense
>>>>> I have to use on Linux.
>>>>
>>>> That's actually nvi and not "real vi".
>>>>
>>>> Original vi, updated to build on modern systems, is available on
>>>> FreeBSD as a port/package.  Look for "2bsd-vi".
>>>>
>>>> Anyway, as everybody knows, the standard Unix editor is ed(1).
>>>>
>>> No, it's "cat - > abc"  :-)
>>
>> What's that minus sign doing there?
>
> If you're not being facetious, here's a line from the man page:
>
>    With no FILE, or when FILE is -, read standard input.
>
> I don't see the point, but that's how it is.
>
Some people fail to see the humour inherent in the question posed in
response to my post. Sigh.

Cheers,
Gary B-)

Gary R. Schmidt <grschmidt@acm.org> schrieb:
> On 14/04/2022 03:53, Thomas Koenig wrote:
>> Michael F. Stemper <michael.stemper@gmail.com> schrieb:
>>> On 13/04/2022 01.02, Thomas Koenig wrote:
>>>> Gary R. Schmidt <grschmidt@acm.org> schrieb:
>>>>> On 13/04/2022 09:03, Christian Weisgerber wrote:
>>>>>> On 2022-04-12, Ted Nolan <tednolan> <ted@loft.tnolan.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Yep, on a FreeBSD laptop right now using *real* vi -- none of this vim nonsense
>>>>>>> I have to use on Linux.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> That's actually nvi and not "real vi".
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Original vi, updated to build on modern systems, is available on
>>>>>> FreeBSD as a port/package. Look for "2bsd-vi".
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Anyway, as everybody knows, the standard Unix editor is ed(1).
>>>>>>
>>>>> No, it's "cat - > abc" :-)
>>>>
>>>> What's that minus sign doing there?
>>>
>>> If you're not being facetious, here's a line from the man page:
>>>
>>> With no FILE, or when FILE is -, read standard input.
>>
>> So, why specify it at all? It's not the UNIX way (and "cat
>> coming back from Berkeley waving flags" was one of the things that
>> Kernighan complained about, IIRC).
>
>
> Because I like my code to be self-documenting, and there're far too many
> newbies who don't know that "cat" with no parameters reads from stdin -

Isn't there a competition somewhere about the most useless uses of cat?

Something like

cat foo.txt bar.txt | grep pattern

can easily be extended to

cat foo.txt bar.txt | cat | cat | grep pattern

> I was at a Linux installfest-thingie a decade or two ago, and one of the
> /instructors/ asked me, "How do I get out of 'cat' when I've hit <CR>
> before I typed the file name".

"Control-C" should be the first thing people learn about the UNIX
command line.

It works, unless you have no idea what vi is when you try to invoke
the Fortran compiler with "fc". Happened to me in my first-ever
UNIX session, after I had created a hello.f program, using cat
(of course).

On 13/04/2022 12.53, Thomas Koenig wrote:
> Michael F. Stemper <michael.stemper@gmail.com> schrieb:
>> On 13/04/2022 01.02, Thomas Koenig wrote:
>>> Gary R. Schmidt <grschmidt@acm.org> schrieb:
>>>> On 13/04/2022 09:03, Christian Weisgerber wrote:

>>>>> Anyway, as everybody knows, the standard Unix editor is ed(1).
>>>>>
>>>> No, it's "cat - > abc" :-)
>>>
>>> What's that minus sign doing there?
>>
>> If you're not being facetious, here's a line from the man page:
>>
>> With no FILE, or when FILE is -, read standard input.
>
> So, why specify it at all?

Like I said, "I don't see the point [...]"

--
Michael F. Stemper
Economists have correctly predicted seven of the last three recessions.

On 14/04/2022 20:49, Thomas Koenig wrote:
> Gary R. Schmidt <grschmidt@acm.org> schrieb:
>> On 14/04/2022 03:53, Thomas Koenig wrote:
>>> Michael F. Stemper <michael.stemper@gmail.com> schrieb:
>>>> On 13/04/2022 01.02, Thomas Koenig wrote:
>>>>> Gary R. Schmidt <grschmidt@acm.org> schrieb:
>>>>>> On 13/04/2022 09:03, Christian Weisgerber wrote:
>>>>>>> On 2022-04-12, Ted Nolan <tednolan> <ted@loft.tnolan.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Yep, on a FreeBSD laptop right now using *real* vi -- none of this vim nonsense
>>>>>>>> I have to use on Linux.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> That's actually nvi and not "real vi".
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Original vi, updated to build on modern systems, is available on
>>>>>>> FreeBSD as a port/package. Look for "2bsd-vi".
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Anyway, as everybody knows, the standard Unix editor is ed(1).
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> No, it's "cat - > abc" :-)
>>>>>
>>>>> What's that minus sign doing there?
>>>>
>>>> If you're not being facetious, here's a line from the man page:
>>>>
>>>> With no FILE, or when FILE is -, read standard input.
>>>
>>> So, why specify it at all? It's not the UNIX way (and "cat
>>> coming back from Berkeley waving flags" was one of the things that
>>> Kernighan complained about, IIRC).
>>
>>
>> Because I like my code to be self-documenting, and there're far too many
>> newbies who don't know that "cat" with no parameters reads from stdin -
>
> Isn't there a competition somewhere about the most useless uses of cat?
>
> Something like
>
> cat foo.txt bar.txt | grep pattern
>
> can easily be extended to
>
> cat foo.txt bar.txt | cat | cat | grep pattern
>
I've always been particularly amused by "cat < x | xyz".

Cheers,
Gary B-)

On Wednesday, 13 April 2022 at 18:54:01 UTC+1, Thomas Koenig wrote:
> Michael F. Stemper <michael...@gmail.com> schrieb:
> > On 13/04/2022 01.02, Thomas Koenig wrote:
> >> Gary R. Schmidt <grsc...@acm.org> schrieb:
> >>> On 13/04/2022 09:03, Christian Weisgerber wrote:
> >>>> On 2022-04-12, Ted Nolan <tednolan> <t...@loft.tnolan.com> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>> Yep, on a FreeBSD laptop right now using *real* vi -- none of this vim nonsense
> >>>>> I have to use on Linux.
> >>>>
> >>>> That's actually nvi and not "real vi".
> >>>>
> >>>> Original vi, updated to build on modern systems, is available on
> >>>> FreeBSD as a port/package. Look for "2bsd-vi".
> >>>>
> >>>> Anyway, as everybody knows, the standard Unix editor is ed(1).
> >>>>
> >>> No, it's "cat - > abc" :-)
> >>
> >> What's that minus sign doing there?
> >
> > If you're not being facetious, here's a line from the man page:
> >
> > With no FILE, or when FILE is -, read standard input.
> So, why specify it at all? It's not the UNIX way (and "cat
> coming back from Berkeley waving flags" was one of the things that
> Kernighan complained about, IIRC).

I have very limited UNIX and Linux knowledge,
but, if you can't set parameter one as \- instead
of no parameter, then how do you indicate that
parameter two is not parameter one? Or, if a
wrapper program expects you to set required
parameters and then say "go", setting - indicates
that "I didn't forget to set this parameter", which
!would be inferred from leaving it blank.

"Gary R. Schmidt" <grschmidt@acm.org> writes:
> Betterbird/91.8.0

>
>On 14/04/2022 20:49, Thomas Koenig wrote:
>> Gary R. Schmidt <grschmidt@acm.org> schrieb:
>>> On 14/04/2022 03:53, Thomas Koenig wrote:
>>>> Michael F. Stemper <michael.stemper@gmail.com> schrieb:
>>>>> On 13/04/2022 01.02, Thomas Koenig wrote:
>>>>>> Gary R. Schmidt <grschmidt@acm.org> schrieb:
>>>>>>> On 13/04/2022 09:03, Christian Weisgerber wrote:
>>>>>>>> On 2022-04-12, Ted Nolan <tednolan> <ted@loft.tnolan.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Yep, on a FreeBSD laptop right now using *real* vi -- none of this vim nonsense
>>>>>>>>> I have to use on Linux.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> That's actually nvi and not "real vi".
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Original vi, updated to build on modern systems, is available on
>>>>>>>> FreeBSD as a port/package. Look for "2bsd-vi".
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Anyway, as everybody knows, the standard Unix editor is ed(1).
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> No, it's "cat - > abc" :-)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> What's that minus sign doing there?
>>>>>
>>>>> If you're not being facetious, here's a line from the man page:
>>>>>
>>>>> With no FILE, or when FILE is -, read standard input.
>>>>
>>>> So, why specify it at all? It's not the UNIX way (and "cat
>>>> coming back from Berkeley waving flags" was one of the things that
>>>> Kernighan complained about, IIRC).
>>>
>>>
>>> Because I like my code to be self-documenting, and there're far too many
>>> newbies who don't know that "cat" with no parameters reads from stdin -
>>
>> Isn't there a competition somewhere about the most useless uses of cat?
>>
>> Something like
>>
>> cat foo.txt bar.txt | grep pattern
>>
>> can easily be extended to
>>
>> cat foo.txt bar.txt | cat | cat | grep pattern
>>
>I've always been particularly amused by "cat < x | xyz".

I can see pipelines like that if you want the shell
to error out quickly if 'x' doesn't exist - no process pipeline
will be created in that case.

I use this frequently:

$ cat /work/music/Rock/all_jazz.m3u | shuf > /work/music/Rock/all_jazz_shuffle.m3u

(all the .m3u (playlist) files are in the Rock directory. So sue me).

On Thu, 14 Apr 2022 07:59:14 -0700 (PDT), Robert Carnegie
<rja.carnegie@excite.com> wrote:

>On Wednesday, 13 April 2022 at 18:54:01 UTC+1, Thomas Koenig wrote:
>> Michael F. Stemper <michael...@gmail.com> schrieb:
>> > On 13/04/2022 01.02, Thomas Koenig wrote:
>> >> Gary R. Schmidt <grsc...@acm.org> schrieb:
>> >>> On 13/04/2022 09:03, Christian Weisgerber wrote:
>> >>>> On 2022-04-12, Ted Nolan <tednolan> <t...@loft.tnolan.com> wrote:
>> >>>>
>> >>>>> Yep, on a FreeBSD laptop right now using *real* vi -- none of this vim nonsense
>> >>>>> I have to use on Linux.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> That's actually nvi and not "real vi".
>> >>>>
>> >>>> Original vi, updated to build on modern systems, is available on
>> >>>> FreeBSD as a port/package. Look for "2bsd-vi".
>> >>>>
>> >>>> Anyway, as everybody knows, the standard Unix editor is ed(1).
>> >>>>
>> >>> No, it's "cat - > abc" :-)
>> >>
>> >> What's that minus sign doing there?
>> >
>> > If you're not being facetious, here's a line from the man page:
>> >
>> > With no FILE, or when FILE is -, read standard input.
>> So, why specify it at all? It's not the UNIX way (and "cat
>> coming back from Berkeley waving flags" was one of the things that
>> Kernighan complained about, IIRC).
>
>I have very limited UNIX and Linux knowledge,
>but, if you can't set parameter one as \- instead
>of no parameter, then how do you indicate that
>parameter two is not parameter one? Or, if a
>wrapper program expects you to set required
>parameters and then say "go", setting - indicates
>that "I didn't forget to set this parameter", which
>!would be inferred from leaving it blank.

Not all parameters are required.

The code parsing the parameters is expected to figure it out.

In this case, it isn't /that/ hard to test for "-" as the first
parameter, note what that means, reset the start of the parameter
list, and move on from there.
--
"I begin to envy Petronius."
"I have envied him long since."

Robert Carnegie <rja.carnegie@excite.com> writes:
>On Wednesday, 13 April 2022 at 18:54:01 UTC+1, Thomas Koenig wrote:
>> Michael F. Stemper <michael...@gmail.com> schrieb:
>> > On 13/04/2022 01.02, Thomas Koenig wrote:
>> >> Gary R. Schmidt <grsc...@acm.org> schrieb:
>> >>> On 13/04/2022 09:03, Christian Weisgerber wrote:
>> >>>> On 2022-04-12, Ted Nolan <tednolan> <t...@loft.tnolan.com> wrote:
>> >>>>
>> >>>>> Yep, on a FreeBSD laptop right now using *real* vi -- none of this vim nonsense
>> >>>>> I have to use on Linux.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> That's actually nvi and not "real vi".
>> >>>>
>> >>>> Original vi, updated to build on modern systems, is available on
>> >>>> FreeBSD as a port/package. Look for "2bsd-vi".
>> >>>>
>> >>>> Anyway, as everybody knows, the standard Unix editor is ed(1).
>> >>>>
>> >>> No, it's "cat - > abc" :-)
>> >>
>> >> What's that minus sign doing there?
>> >
>> > If you're not being facetious, here's a line from the man page:
>> >
>> > With no FILE, or when FILE is -, read standard input.
>> So, why specify it at all? It's not the UNIX way (and "cat
>> coming back from Berkeley waving flags" was one of the things that
>> Kernighan complained about, IIRC).
>
>I have very limited UNIX and Linux knowledge,
>but, if you can't set parameter one as \- instead
>of no parameter, then how do you indicate that
>parameter two is not parameter one? Or, if a
>wrapper program expects you to set required
>parameters and then say "go", setting - indicates
>that "I didn't forget to set this parameter", which
>!would be inferred from leaving it blank.

Option flags, in general, stand alone. If a command
has multiple option flags (that don't take parameters),
one can lump them all into a single argument:

$ ps -fu scott
$ tar -tzf tar.file

or specify them separately in any order

$ ps -f -u scott
$ ps -u scott -f
$ tar -t -z -f tar.file
$ tar -t -f tar.file -z

For cases where the input of a command comes from a pipeline,
the '-' argument instructs the command to read from standard input
instead of a file on disk.

$ grep pattern file | sed -e "s/pattern1/pattern2" | cut -f 2 -d '," | mkisofs -o x.iso -

For cases where you need to pass something that looks like an option flag to
a command as an argument, the '--' token will terminate processing of option flags.

$ cat -v -- -f

Would print the contents of a file named '-f' with nonprintable
characters shown as escape sequences.