Re: The "*" character (was: Latex )

[Mark Phillips <mark@maths.flinders.edu.au>]

>> But the interesting thing is that dpkg -l *tex* actually _works_ when
>> run under bash, leading me to think that the bash shell doesn't expand
>> the argument first.
>> 
>Are you sure you tried dpkg -l *tex* in a directory where you know there's 
>a file whose name matches the pattern *tex*, and whose name is not that 
>of a debian package?  On my system both bash and tcsh behaved the same way.

Very strange.  Here is what I did on my system under bash:

(mark, destiny)$ ls
Maelstrom        gnuchessc        maelstrom        xonix
Maelstrom_sound  gnuchessn        mirrormagic      xp-replay
acm              gnuchessr        nethack          xpat2
acms             gnuchessx        postprint        xpilot
cmail            gnugo            pxboard          xpilots
fortune          gnushogi         xasteroids       xshogi
game             gnushogir        xbattle          xsok
gnuan            gnushogix        xboard           xtet42
gnuchess         kill-acms        xinvaders        xtron
(mark, destiny)$ dpkg -l *tex*
Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge
| Status=Not/Installed/Config-files/Unpacked/Failed-config/Half-installed
|/ Err?=(none)/Hold/Reinst-required/X=both-problems (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name            Version        Description
+++-===============-==============-============================================
un  X11-text-viewer <none>         (no description available)
pn  amslatex        <none>         (no description available)
pn  amstex          <none>         (no description available)
pn  auctex          <none>         (no description available)
pn  bibtex          <none>         (no description available)
pn  gettext         <none>         (no description available)
pn  hyperlatex      <none>         (no description available)
pn  latex           <none>         (no description available)
pn  latex2e-doc     <none>         (no description available)
pn  latex2rtf       <none>         (no description available)
ii  nb-tex          2.1-1          NTeX package
ii  nb-texi         2.1-1          NTeX package
ii  ntex            2.1-1          NTeX package
ii  nx-etex         2.1-1          NTeX package
ii  nx-mtex         2.1-1          NTeX package
un  tex             <none>         (no description available)
pn  texbin          <none>         (no description available)
pn  texidoc         <none>         (no description available)
ii  texinfo         3.7-1          The GNU Project's documentation formatting s
pn  texlib          <none>         (no description available)
pn  texpsfnt        <none>         (no description available)
pn  textfm          <none>         (no description available)
ii  textutils       1.19-1         The GNU text file processsing utilities.
ii  untex           9210-4         Remove LaTeX commands from input.


(Which incidently is the same as what I get when I use the quotes)

Mark.