dumb newbie questions
Jonathan Gardner
jgardn at alumni.washington.edu
Thu Jan 17 17:31:14 EST 2002
> >
> > $ cat matrix.txt | python inverse.py
>
> or, to avoid creating an unnecessary process,
>
> $ python inverse.py < matrix.txt
>
Yeah, you can do that. But when I was a newbie to unix, I always would try to
do something stupid like this:
$ some_prog < grep "something" some_file
"But it works for you! Why can't I do this?" - me, to unix guru
And it didn't help when I did something really stupid like:
$ some_prog > head
and wonder why it didn't show a head for me!
"Where did this 'head' file come from? Is it a trojan horse?" - me
So remember, boys and girls, use '<' and '>' for files, and '|' for
processes.
"Power comes from the end of a pipe" is what Mao Tsetung would have said if
he knew about Unix.
Jonathan
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