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On Tue, 16 Oct 2001, Brendan Bispham wrote:

> I think the self-documenting of QCL is exemplified in the fact that:
>
> > cp file1 file2 file3 file4 outputfile
>
> wont work in unix.... and it's not apparent why.

Ah, well it does actually, as long as outputfile is a directory.  And
since in unix everything is a file then I was technically correct in
calling it outputfile.  However I didn't intent it that way but instead
wanted what you say below.  By the way it is apparent why it doesn't work:

james@orion:~> cp test1 test2 test3 test4
cp: copying multiple files, but last argument `test4' is not a directory
Try `cp --help' for more information.

> cat file1 file2 file3 file4 > outputfile
>
> ...but what happens if something goes wrong and you dont have authority to
> file3? The actual error-recovery code has to be included, and this would make
> the whole thing a lot harder... surely?

I think you better explain what you mean by error-recovery code before I
make too many statements about that.  What does happen is:

james@orion:~> chmod a-r test2
james@orion:~> cat test1 test2 test3 > test4
cat: test2: Permission denied

test4 contains the contents of test1 and test3, which is exactly right.
Remember that this (unlike os/400) is not an integrated database, so you
do the best you can and tell what things went wrong.  There are no
transactions or rollback or a gauranteed level of completion.  The command
was "cat test1 into test4, test2 into test4, and test3 into test4."  cat
responded with "I got test1 and test3 in ok, but you don't have permission
to test2, so I couldn't do it."  If this were a RDBMS then things had
better stop and say that the sequence couldn't be completed, so none of it
was done.  But this isn't, so it does what it can.

James Rich
james@eaerich.com



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