In article , Jean-Pierre Rosen writes: > Maciej Sobczak a �crit : >> Jean-Pierre Rosen wrote: >> >>> Too bad that Unix behaviour was wrong in the first place... >> >> I don't understand. Shell uses some special characters to make it easier >> for the user to type commands [1]. Wildcards are just an example. >> Consider this: >> >> $ cat *.ads *.adb | wc -l > loc.txt >> >> If you claim that * above should be passed "as is" to the program (cat), >> so that the program can figure out on itself what to do with it, then >> you might as well argue that the program should figure out *everything* >> above. Obviously, that wouldn't be funny. >> > I claim it would be easier to provide a function that expands > parameters, than to force expansion. Or maybe just provide another > function that provides the raw parameters. That is what VMS provides, and what one calls from DEC Ada on VMS. Using the OS-provided code is essential, as interpreting rooted directory multivalued logical names is just too complex for private implementations.