You don't realize the point. I am agreeing with Kernighan and Pike:
cat -v is harmful. So is ls -M, or echo -f, or rm -i. I'm showing a
ludicrous echo command and challenging you to make it effective. What
you'll find is surprising:
1) Maintaining echo is harder than maintaining all of Microsoft
Windows and Microsoft Office combined,
2) That my question and my challenge and my echo were all rhetorical.
Here is my ultimate echo (yours may vary):
NAME
echo -- echo argumens
SYNOPSIS
echo [-n] arguments
DESCRIPTION
echo prints arguments on standard output, followed by newline. If -n
is given, no new line is added.
BUGS
To print -n and a newline, use
echo -n '
'
On Apr 3, 2008, at 6:16 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Is -M the switch for the built-in mail reader?
This is lunacy, or profound ignorance. You're duplicating
functionality from about a half dozen other places in here,
perhaps most significantly the shell. The software tools
model gets its profound power from using simple tools
which do one thing well and can be combined in arbitrary
ways. Your... whatever... does lots of arbitrary things,
while not actually doing much of anything for the user.
If this is the "ultimate" echo, I fear for what "something
cool" might be. I don't think my health could take it.
Anthony
