Unix Q &

One:
Answers to the following questions in this article:

1.1) who will help you make this faq?
1.2) when someone mentions 'rn (1) 'or 'ctime (3)', what does the number in the ARC mean?
1.3) Why are some strange unix command names?
1.4) How does the gateway between "comp. unix. questions" and "info-unix" mailing list work?
1.5) Please recommend some useful books related to Unix and C.
1.6) where was the pronunciation table in this FAQ?

1.1) who will help you make this faq?

This document was compiled in July 1989 as one of the first several FAQs. Almost all the editing work was done by Steve Hayman. I only take over the maintenance of this file.

We are very grateful to the Usenet readers for their question, response, correction, and proposal.

Special thanks to Maarten Litmaath, Guy Harris and Jonathan Kamens for their contributions.

Part 1 of this file (shells) is almost entirely written by Matthew Wicks <wicks@dcdmjw.fnal.gov>.

Part 1 of this file (Various Unix) is almost entirely written by Pierre (P.) Lewis <lew@bnr.ca>

I try my best to put the author of each problem and the last updated date at the beginning of the problem. Unfortunately, many of the information has been lost because I recently started to do so. I also neglected to save it as a question
The list of persons whose questions are supplemented with the latest information. We apologize to those who have contributed but have not received the honor they deserve.

I convert this file to * roff format (both MS and mm macro ). AndrewCromarty converts it to the Texinfo format. The formatted versions can be modified by anonymous.
Ftp obtained at _ blank> ftp.wg.omron.co.jp pub/unix-faq/docs.

1.2) when someone mentions 'rn (1) 'or 'ctime (3)', what does the number in the ARC mean?

It looks like a function call. However, no. These projects refer to the section of the document in the Unix manual. When you press "man 3 ctime", it indicates that
The content of ctime in section 3.

The segmentation method of traditional Unix manuals:

1 User-level commands
2 System CILS
3 Library functions
4 Devices and device drivers
5 File formats
6 Games
7 Various miscellaneous stuff-macro packages etc.
8 System maintenance and operation commands

Some Unix versions use non-numeric chapter names. For example, Xenix commands use "C" and functions use "S ". Some newer Unix versions must use "man-s # title" and
Not "man # title ". Each section has an introduction. # represents the number of segments. "man # intro" can be used to read section.

Sometimes it is necessary to distinguish commands from regular or system call numbers with the same name. For example, your system may have "time (1)", time-consuming instructions for the 'time' measurement.
There is also a description of "time (3)". The 'time' clause is used to determine the current time. You can use "man 1 time" or "man 3 time" to select
1. Description of "time.

You may have other chapters or subsections in the system. For example, Ultrix has 3 m, 3n, 3x, and 3yp.

1.3) the origins of some strange unix Commands

Awk = "Aho Weinberger and Kernighan"

This language is named by the authors Al Aho, Peter Weinberger, and Brian Kernighan.

Grep = "Global Regular Expression Print"

Grep from ed print all entries that comply with a certain pattern command

G/re/p

"Re" stands for regular expression

Fgrep = "Fixed GREP ".

Fgrep □find a fixed string. "F" doesn't mean "fast"-in fact, "fgrep foobar *. c" is generally slower than "egrep foobar *. c" (a little surprised, don't believe it
You can try it yourself ).
Even so, Fgrep still has merits. When searching strings in an archive, Fgrep can process more strings than egrep.

Egrep = "Extended GREP"

Egrep uses a regular rexpression that is more fancy than grep. Many people always only use egrep because algorithm is more advanced than grep or fgrep, while
It is usually the fastest among the three programs.

Cat = "CATenate"

Catenate is a difficult and difficult word, which means "connecting it into a string". This is how the "cat" command processes one or more files.

Do not confuse C/A/T. C/A/T refers to Computer Aided Typesetter ).

Gecos = "General Electric Comprehensive Operating Supervisor"

However, when GE's large System Department was sold to Honeywell, Honeywell took off gecos e.

Currently, the Unix Password File still contains the "pw_gecos" field. This name was used in the early ages.

Dennis Ritchie once said:

"Sometimes we will drop the printed table output or the whole batch of work to the GCOS machine. The gcos field in the password file is used to hide information on the $ IDENT card. This is not elegant enough ".

Nroff = "New ROFF"
Troff = "Typesetter new ROFF"

These words are derived from "roff", and roff is obtained by rewriting the runoff program on Multics (runoff means "print file ").

Tee = T

This is the term of the pipeline worker, representing the T-type pipeline forks.

Bss = "Block Started by Symbol" (Block starting from the Symbol)

Dennis Ritchie once said:

This abbreviation may have other words, but in fact we use this abbreviation to mean "Block Started by Symbol ". It is a virtual instruction on FAP, FAP (Fortran
Assembly [-er?] Program) refers to the group interpreter of IBM 704-709-7090-7094. This command defines your own labels and reserves a certain number of word group spaces.
Another virtual command, BES, is "Block Ended by Symbol". It is almost the same as BSS commands. The difference is that the number is defined at the end of the reserved word group space and the address is greater than 1.
Location. On these machines, the Fortran array is stored in the reverse direction, and the index of the array is counted from 1.

This usage is reasonable, because it is the same as the standard program loader on UNIX, the Code is not really put into this entire reserved space, but expressed with a number, during loading
To determine the required reserved space.

Biff = "BIFF"

This command is used to set whether to notify you of new emails. This is the name of a dog on the Berkeley University campus.

I can determine the origin of this name. If you are interested, Biff is a pet of Heidi stettings. I think Heidi (and I, and Bill Joy) was still UCB.
When I was a graduate student, the early BSD version was still in development. Biff is favored by people like Evans Hils, And it is famous for the delivery forward.
Use biff as the command name. (This is confirmed by Eric Cooper from Carnegie Mellon University)

Rc (for example, the rc letters in ". cshrc" or "/etc/rc") = "RunCom"

"Rc" is taken from "runcom", a CTSS system developed by MIT in 1965. The related literature once recorded this passage: 'has a series of commands taken from the file to execute
This is called "run commands" and "runcom", and this file is also called a runcom (a runcom ). '

Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie told Vicki Brown: "rc" is also the name of Plan 9's operating system shell.

Perl = "Practical Extraction and Report Language"
Perl = "Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister"

Perl is a very popular language developed by Larry Wall. Perl is very convenient in terms of text, process, and archives. It can be said that it has both the advantages of shell and C. Think
For more information about Perl, see Usenet newsgroup comp. lang. perl.

Don Libes's book "Life with Unix" contains more rare anecdotes.

1.4) How does the gateway between "comp. unix. questions" and "info-unix" mailing list work?

"Info-unix" and "unix-wizards" are the mailing-list versions of comp. unix. questions and comp. unix. wizards respectively. Mailing list and
Newsgroup content should be the same

To join or exit any mailing list, email your info-unix-quest@brl.mil or unix-wizards-request@brl.mil. Remember to join or quit
The mailing list is sent to "*-request@brl.mil ". Please wait patiently because no response will be received immediately.

Below is the detailed details about these mailing lists provided by Bob Reschly, the maintainer of the mailing list.

==== Postings to info-UNIX and UNIX-wizards lists ====

I personally do not control the content sent to the mailing list. Any mail sent to this mailing list will be pasted to the corresponding news group. Only simple transfer.
For Internet users on this mailing list, to send articles to newgroup, please send them to info-UNIX or UNIX-wizards. '-request' indicates the desired message.
For the maintainer of the mailing list.

Internet users on this mailing list receive two types of messages: one is a single discussion article, and the other is a digest of the essence of multiple discussions. Slave
Messages sent from the Internet or BITNET (via Bitnet converter → Internet converter) to the DMP are forwarded to every user in the mail list.

An article sent from USENET is sent to all Members in the mailing list in a unified manner every day. BITNET's network traffic is similar to Internet traffic.
The main difference is that for all BITNET recipients in the mailing list, I only need to maintain an email address so that the recipient program where this address is located maintains all the recipients.
And automatically resend all the articles to every subscriber on the mailing list.

Subscribers on USENET only read their own independent messages. All messages sent from the Internet are forwarded to our machine on USENET and pasted to the appropriate discussion area.
Unfortunately, the sender of the articles posted through the conversion program will change to news @ PCIe-adm, which is an inherent limitation that the conversion software has not yet solved.

As for the reader group, USENET is a place with a large number of readers. I guess there are thousands of hosts and tens of thousands of users involved in USETNET. Major list conventions maintained
There are 250, about 10 of which are local forwarding lists. I don't know much about the number of transfers in BITNET, but if I want to guess it, the number is about the same as that in the main list. On average, a list sends 150 K to 400 K data in a week.

1.5) some useful Unix and C books are recommended.

Mitch Wright (mitch@cirrus.com) maintains a list of Unix and C-related books that contain both brief and short reviews. Currently, his table has 167 ftp.rahul.net
(192.160.13.1) "pub/mitch/YABL/yabl" is this list. To add new content or provide suggestions to the mitch@cirrus.com.

Samuel Ko (kko@sfu.ca) maintains a Unix-related book table. This list only contains recommendations, so it is relatively short. This table is a list of categories. If you are looking for specific entries
This table is undoubtedly suitable for books of different types. Rtfm.mit.edu's "pub/usenet/news. answers/books/unix" is the table. Add new content or provide suggestions
Send email to kko@sfu.ca.

If you can't use anonymouse ftp, write "help" to the content of the email to the "ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com" letter, and then you will receive a copy to teach you how to get it by email
Get the letter from anonymous.

1.6) where was the pronunciation table in this FAQ?

When this document was opened in 1989, it contained an all-encompassing copy of the original Carl Paukstis <carlp@frigg.isc-br.com> maintained by Maarten Litmaath
Pronunciation table. Later, it turned out, because the pronunciation is not really related to the "Unix questions" topic.

If you encounter some words that do not know how to read, please refer to the Jargon maintained by Eric S. Raymond eric@snark.thyrsus.com.

/*: _ Blank> ftp://ftp.csie.nctu.edu.tw/pub/GNU/jarg320.txt.gz is a normal text version of Jargon */

If you still insist on the previous Pronunciation table, "pub/unix-faq/docs/Pronunciation-Guide" of _ blank> ftp.wg.omron.co.jp (133.210.4.4)