Re: tr '\verb|\|000' '\verb|\|\n'?

[David Z Maze <dmaze@MIT.EDU>]

Johann Spies <jhspies@adept.co.za> writes:
JS> Can somebody explain the subject line to me please.  I have read it in
JS> a linux training document and it is not doing what the document says
JS> it should do.  What I do not understand and do not know where to find
JS> documentation on it is the '\verb|\|000' '\verb|\|\n' part.  I know tr
JS> but what is '\verb|\|000'?  And the use of |\|?  

Are you reading this out of the source of a LaTeX document?  In LaTeX, 
the notation \verb|foo| means to print the foo verbatim, in a monotype 
font, without interpreting any of the contents as "special" (and
backslashes are *very* special in LaTeX).  More likely, the formatted
output would look like

        tr '\0' '\n'

which would try to transform null bytes in the input into newlines.

JS> The whole command according to the document is
JS> 
JS> cat /proc/$$/environ | tr '\verb|\|000' '\verb|\|\n' 
JS> 
JS> which is supposed to put each variable it shows on a separate
JS> line.

Right, that makes sense here.

-- 
David Maze             dmaze@mit.edu          http://www.mit.edu/~dmaze/
"Theoretical politics is interesting.  Politicking should be illegal."
	-- Abra Mitchell