home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- Path: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!dreaderd!not-for-mail
- Message-ID: <unix-faq/faq/contents_1084272547@rtfm.mit.edu>
- Supersedes: <unix-faq/faq/contents_1083581613@rtfm.mit.edu>
- Expires: 1 Jun 2004 10:49:07 GMT
- X-Last-Updated: 1996/06/11
- From: tmatimar@isgtec.com (Ted Timar)
- Distribution: world
- Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions,comp.unix.shell,comp.answers,news.answers
- Followup-To: comp.unix.questions
- Organization: ISG Technologies, Inc
- Subject: Unix - Frequently Asked Questions (Contents) [Frequent posting]
- Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.Edu
- Originator: faqserv@penguin-lust.MIT.EDU
- Date: 11 May 2004 10:49:59 GMT
- Lines: 170
- NNTP-Posting-Host: penguin-lust.mit.edu
- X-Trace: 1084272599 senator-bedfellow.mit.edu 576 18.181.0.29
- Xref: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu comp.unix.questions:195433 comp.unix.shell:165510 comp.answers:57113 news.answers:271069
-
- Archive-name: unix-faq/faq/contents
- Version: $Id: contents,v 2.9 1996/06/11 13:08:13 tmatimar Exp $
-
- The following seven articles contain the answers to some Frequently Asked
- Questions often seen in comp.unix.questions and comp.unix.shell.
- Please don't ask these questions again, they've been answered plenty
- of times already - and please don't flame someone just because they may
- not have read this particular posting. Thank you.
-
- This collection of documents is Copyright (c) 1994, Ted Timar, except
- Part 6, which is Copyright (c) 1994, Pierre Lewis and Ted Timar.
- All rights reserved. Permission to distribute the collection is
- hereby granted providing that distribution is electronic, no money
- is involved, reasonable attempts are made to use the latest version
- and all credits and this copyright notice are maintained.
- Other requests for distribution will be considered. All reasonable
- requests will be granted.
-
- All information here has been contributed with good intentions, but
- none of it is guaranteed either by the contributors or myself to be
- accurate. The users of this information take all responsibility for
- any damage that may occur.
-
- Many FAQs, including this one, are available on the archive site
- rtfm.mit.edu in the directory pub/usenet/news.answers.
- The name under which a FAQ is archived appears in the "Archive-Name:"
- line at the top of the article. This FAQ is archived as
- "unix-faq/faq/part[1-7]".
-
- These articles are divided approximately as follows:
-
- 1.*) General questions.
- 2.*) Relatively basic questions, likely to be asked by beginners.
- 3.*) Intermediate questions.
- 4.*) Advanced questions, likely to be asked by people who thought
- they already knew all of the answers.
- 5.*) Questions pertaining to the various shells, and the differences.
- 6.*) An overview of Unix variants.
- 7.*) An comparison of configuration management systems (RCS, SCCS).
-
- The following questions are answered:
-
- 1.1) Who helped you put this list together?
- 1.2) When someone refers to 'rn(1)' or 'ctime(3)', what does
- the number in parentheses mean?
- 1.3) What does {some strange unix command name} stand for?
- 1.4) How does the gateway between "comp.unix.questions" and the
- "info-unix" mailing list work?
- 1.5) What are some useful Unix or C books?
- 1.6) What happened to the pronunciation list that used to be
- part of this document?
-
- 2.1) How do I remove a file whose name begins with a "-" ?
- 2.2) How do I remove a file with funny characters in the filename ?
- 2.3) How do I get a recursive directory listing?
- 2.4) How do I get the current directory into my prompt?
- 2.5) How do I read characters from the terminal in a shell script?
- 2.6) How do I rename "*.foo" to "*.bar", or change file names
- to lowercase?
- 2.7) Why do I get [some strange error message] when I
- "rsh host command" ?
- 2.8) How do I {set an environment variable, change directory} inside a
- program or shell script and have that change affect my
- current shell?
- 2.9) How do I redirect stdout and stderr separately in csh?
- 2.10) How do I tell inside .cshrc if I'm a login shell?
- 2.11) How do I construct a shell glob-pattern that matches all files
- except "." and ".." ?
- 2.12) How do I find the last argument in a Bourne shell script?
- 2.13) What's wrong with having '.' in your $PATH ?
- 2.14) How do I ring the terminal bell during a shell script?
- 2.15) Why can't I use "talk" to talk with my friend on machine X?
- 2.16) Why does calendar produce the wrong output?
-
- 3.1) How do I find the creation time of a file?
- 3.2) How do I use "rsh" without having the rsh hang around
- until the remote command has completed?
- 3.3) How do I truncate a file?
- 3.4) Why doesn't find's "{}" symbol do what I want?
- 3.5) How do I set the permissions on a symbolic link?
- 3.6) How do I "undelete" a file?
- 3.7) How can a process detect if it's running in the background?
- 3.8) Why doesn't redirecting a loop work as intended? (Bourne shell)
- 3.9) How do I run 'passwd', 'ftp', 'telnet', 'tip' and other interactive
- programs from a shell script or in the background?
- 3.10) How do I find the process ID of a program with a particular
- name from inside a shell script or C program?
- 3.11) How do I check the exit status of a remote command
- executed via "rsh" ?
- 3.12) Is it possible to pass shell variable settings into an awk program?
- 3.13) How do I get rid of zombie processes that persevere?
- 3.14) How do I get lines from a pipe as they are written instead of
- only in larger blocks?
- 3.15) How do I get the date into a filename?
- 3.16) Why do some scripts start with #! ... ?
-
- 4.1) How do I read characters from a terminal without requiring the user
- to hit RETURN?
- 4.2) How do I check to see if there are characters to be read without
- actually reading?
- 4.3) How do I find the name of an open file?
- 4.4) How can an executing program determine its own pathname?
- 4.5) How do I use popen() to open a process for reading AND writing?
- 4.6) How do I sleep() in a C program for less than one second?
- 4.7) How can I get setuid shell scripts to work?
- 4.8) How can I find out which user or process has a file open or is using
- a particular file system (so that I can unmount it?)
- 4.9) How do I keep track of people who are fingering me?
- 4.10) Is it possible to reconnect a process to a terminal after it has
- been disconnected, e.g. after starting a program in the background
- and logging out?
- 4.11) Is it possible to "spy" on a terminal, displaying the output
- that's appearing on it on another terminal?
-
- 5.1) Can shells be classified into categories?
- 5.2) How do I "include" one shell script from within another
- shell script?
- 5.3) Do all shells have aliases? Is there something else that
- can be used?
- 5.4) How are shell variables assigned?
- 5.5) How can I tell if I am running an interactive shell?
- 5.6) What "dot" files do the various shells use?
- 5.7) I would like to know more about the differences between the
- various shells. Is this information available some place?
-
- 6.1) Disclaimer and introduction.
- 6.2) A very brief look at Unix history.
- 6.3) Main Unix flavors.
- 6.4) Main Players and Unix Standards.
- 6.5) Identifying your Unix flavor.
- 6.6) Brief notes on some well-known (commercial/PD) Unices.
- 6.7) Real-time Unices.
- 6.8) Unix glossary.
- 6.9) Acknowledgements.
-
- 7.1) RCS vs SCCS: Introduction
- 7.2) RCS vs SCCS: How do the interfaces compare?
- 7.3) RCS vs SCCS: What's in a Revision File?
- 7.4) RCS vs SCCS: What are the keywords?
- 7.5) What's an RCS symbolic name?
- 7.6) RCS vs SCCS: How do they compare for performance?
- 7.7) RCS vs SCCS: Version Identification.
- 7.8) RCS vs SCCS: How do they handle with problems?
- 7.9) RCS vs SCCS: How do they interact with make(1)?
- 7.10) RCS vs SCCS: Conversion.
- 7.11) RCS vs SCCS: Support
- 7.12) RCS vs SCCS: Command Comparison
- 7.13) RCS vs SCCS: Acknowledgements
- 7.14) Can I get more information on configuration management systems?
-
- If you're looking for the answer to, say, question 2.5, look in
- part 2 and search for the regular expression "^2.5)".
-
- While these are all legitimate questions, they seem to crop up in
- comp.unix.questions or comp.unix.shell on an annual basis, usually
- followed by plenty of replies (only some of which are correct) and then
- a period of griping about how the same questions keep coming up. You
- may also like to read the monthly article "Answers to Frequently Asked
- Questions" in the newsgroup "news.announce.newusers", which will tell
- you what "UNIX" stands for.
-
- With the variety of Unix systems in the world, it's hard to guarantee
- that these answers will work everywhere. Read your local manual pages
- before trying anything suggested here. If you have suggestions or
- corrections for any of these answers, please send them to to
- tmatimar@isgtec.com.
-
- --
- Ted Timar - tmatimar@isgtec.com
- ISG Technologies Inc., 6509 Airport Road, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada L4V 1S7
-