RE: ATTRIB (Using chmod instead)

On Wed, 19 Dec 2001, Joe Pluta wrote:
> >
> > That's what 'touch' is supposed to do, Joe.  People frequently use it to
> > create empty files in UNIX environments.
>
> With invalid names?  I didn't think you could create a file called "*.jsp"
> in Unix.
>

Depends on which shell you're using under Unix.  I usually use tcsh,
and it tells me:

     % touch *.jsp
     touch: No match.

However, if I do:
     % touch '*.jsp'
     % ls -l \**
     -rw-r--r--  1 klemscot  wheel  0 Dec 19 16:22 *.jsp


QSHELL, however, doesn't try to emulate tcsh.  It tries to emulate the
Bourne Shell, "/bin/sh", so a better test is to try it there:

     % /bin/sh
     $ rm \*.jsp
     $ ls -l \**
     ls: **: No such file or directory
     $ touch *.jsp
     $ ls -l \**
     -rw-r--r--  1 scotty  wheel  0 Dec 19 16:26 *.jsp

As you can see...  it does exactly what QSHELL does.

As far as "not being able" to create a file with a '*' in it, AFIAK, the
only character you CAN'T have in a filename in Unix is '/'.  In
addition to that, you can't have a file called "." or ".." (though,
periods are otherwise allowed in the filename) Beyond that, everything that
I know of is legal. Inserting things like '*' is not recommended, because
it's confusing, and harder to work with, but it's certainly legal. :)