misc/96191: "cat" can display directory contents

Poul-Henning Kamp phk at phk.freebsd.dk
Sun Apr 23 09:10:19 UTC 2006


The following reply was made to PR misc/96191; it has been noted by GNATS.

From: "Poul-Henning Kamp" <phk at phk.freebsd.dk>
To: Bjoern Voigt <bjoern at cs.tu-berlin.de>
Cc: freebsd-gnats-submit at FreeBSD.org
Subject: Re: misc/96191: "cat" can display directory contents 
Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 11:05:13 +0200

 In message <200604230850.k3N8oWre066807 at www.freebsd.org>, Bjoern Voigt writes:
 
 >The FreeBSD's version of "cat" is able to display directory contains:
 >
 >$ cat /etc
 >(garbage)
 
 In UNIX a file is a file is a file.
 
 But also, directories, pipes and devices are files.
 
 And as such cat(1) works on them, as it should.
 
 This is not a bug.
 
 -- 
 Poul-Henning Kamp       | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
 phk at FreeBSD.ORG         | TCP/IP since RFC 956
 FreeBSD committer       | BSD since 4.3-tahoe    
 Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.


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