From: ara.t.howard@...
Date: 2006-09-28T06:55:02+09:00
Subject: Re: how to determine if pipe is given

On Thu, 28 Sep 2006 gwtmp01@mac.com wrote:

>
> On Sep 27, 2006, at 4:42 PM, ara.t.howard@noaa.gov wrote:
>> consider  i have many, many programs which do things like
>> 
>>   convert infile outfile
>>   convert - outfile       # infile on stdin
>>   convert infile -        # outfile on stdout
>>   convert - -             # infile on stdin, outfile on stdout
>>   convert --infiles=-     # list of infiles on stdin, auto-name outfiles
>
> While I understand the historical reason for such constructs, I much prefer:
>
>  convert infile outfile
>  convert /dev/stdin outfile       # infile on stdin
>  convert infile /dev/stdout       # outfile on stdout
>  convert            		   # infile on stdin, outfile on stdout

agreed.

>
>>   convert --infiles=-    	 # list of infiles on stdin, auto-name 
>> outfiles
>
> Not sure about this last one.  It certainly isn't all that common. You can
> get close to this via:


   harp:~ > printf "stdin\nstdout\nstderr\n" | grep -i -f- a.rb
   STDERR.puts "#{ msg } (#{ tid })"
   STDIN.gets

we have lots of code that does this because they take thousands of infiles,
hdrfiles, etc...

cheers.


-a
-- 
in order to be effective truth must penetrate like an arrow - and that is
likely to hurt. -- wei wu wei