[ On Monday, June 10, 2002 at 22:24:51 (+0700), Robert Elz wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: discrepency beteen /bin/echo and builtin echo of /bin/sh 
>
> Pretending that an echo that knows about '\n' is rational is irrational.

indeed, but '\c', the better alternative to '-n', is far more rational.

> ps: echo being echo is not BSD, it is original unix, from way way back.

K&P's story of echo is amusing but not exactly a "rationale", nor
exactly a pragmatic solution to common real-world needs.  '\c' is
pragmatic and leaves no room for confusion with command-line option
parsing.

-- 
								Greg A. Woods

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