From: Johannes Schindelin Date: Fri, 08 Jun 2007 12:52:56 GMT Subject: Re: [PATCH v2] Remove useless uses of cat, and replace with filename arguments or redirection Message-ID: In-Reply-To: <46a038f90706080342j3a5bb7abv58c78d7b532e29de@mail.gmail.com> Hi, On Fri, 8 Jun 2007, Martin Langhoff wrote: > On 6/7/07, Johannes Schindelin wrote: > > Things like that are known to happen, and that's why "wc -l < file" is a > > better fix than "wc -l file | tr -dc 0-9". In this case, it might not > > matter for a long time, but why not stop being sloppy here and now? > > Not sure if I'd call is sloppy, but I also prefer wc -l < file -- it's > definitely safer. Okay, so I sounded harsher than intended. I should have phrased it like that: I consider "wc -l < file" substantially more future-proof, and it is in general a good practice IMVHO not to generate something you throw away just after that, when there is a way to avoid generating the unwanted part consistently. Sorry, Dscho