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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!feed1.news.erols.com!howland.erols.net!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!ux4.cso.uiuc.edu!not-for-mail From: haszlaki@students.uiuc.edu (eric richard haszlakiewicz) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: cat foo* > foo.bar causes infinite loop Date: 20 Nov 1996 03:48:31 GMT Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana Lines: 24 Message-ID: <56tv2f$npc@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> References: <328A1236.32C4@pilot.msu.edu> <56d9io$ijc@newshost.lanl.gov> NNTP-Posting-Host: ux4.cso.uiuc.edu X-Newsreader: TIN [UNIX 1.3 950824BETA PL0] Charlie Sorsby (crs@lanl.gov) wrote: : = If I create three files foo1, foo2, and foo3 then run the command : = : = cat foo* > foo.bar : = : = in csh I get an infinite loop (at least until the partition fills up). : = Seems to me that '*' should be evaluated before new files are created. : = I have seen systems that don't behave this way give errors similar to : = "can't open foo.bar for both input and output". : FreeBSD (presently 2.1.5R) is my first experience wiht BSD 4.4. My : experience is with BSD 4.[123], Ultrix, SunOS, and the like. : : I'll be interested to hear comments about this. hmmm... well under netbsd cat foo* >> foo.bar loops if there are files that match foo* that aren't 0 length and you're using ksh or sh. just one > doesn't work and tcsh spits out an error. It sort of makes sense that it should loop though. eric