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   Julia Evans (b0rk@social.jvns.ca)'s status on Saturday, 14-Dec-2024 06:29:16 JST Julia Evans

   writing about the terminal is so funny because it's like "redirects are so useful! hooray!"

   "okay and also `cmd file.txt > file.txt` will just permanently delete the contents of the `file.txt`”

   lots of cool useful tools with the occasionally horrifying fact that you just need to keep seared into your memory

   (please do not explain to me why this happens)

   • Rich Felker repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Cassandra Granade 🏳️‍⚧️ (xgranade@wandering.shop)'s status on Saturday, 14-Dec-2024 06:29:15 JST Cassandra Granade 🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     @b0rk This is part of why I'll often write out a potentially scary command starting with a comment character, then go back and erase it when I'm confident.

   • Embed this notice
     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Monday, 16-Dec-2024 11:24:50 JST Rich Felker

     in reply to

     @b0rk I just use backup, but noclobber for interactive shells sounds interesting. I usually use it only in scripts that first checked for existence (purely to handle the race condition).

   • Embed this notice
     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Monday, 16-Dec-2024 11:25:37 JST Rich Felker

     in reply to

     • Kevin Hughes 🐝
     • Cassandra Granade 🏳️‍⚧️

     @kev @xgranade @b0rk Just let folks be warned: this doesn't defang the >

   • Embed this notice
     Kevin Hughes 🐝 (kev@mcr.wtf)'s status on Monday, 16-Dec-2024 11:25:39 JST Kevin Hughes 🐝

     in reply to

     • Cassandra Granade 🏳️‍⚧️

     @xgranade @b0rk I do a similar thing where I use echo instead of any command with a glob which will harmlessly list the files I'm about to do something to. Especially with rm or something!

   • Embed this notice
     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Monday, 16-Dec-2024 11:30:46 JST Rich Felker

     in reply to

     • Ben Cox
     • Mark Dominus

     @ben @mjd @b0rk It's standard POSIX, not a bashism, and it's set -c. set -o noclobber is the verbose bash-specific form.

   • Embed this notice
     Ben Cox (ben@pgh.social)'s status on Monday, 16-Dec-2024 11:30:48 JST Ben Cox

     in reply to

     • Mark Dominus

     @mjd @b0rk Looks like bash does have it, with `set -o noclobbber`

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     Mark Dominus (mjd@mathstodon.xyz)'s status on Monday, 16-Dec-2024 11:30:49 JST Mark Dominus

     in reply to

     @b0rk As to that I have no clue.

     Hey, do you know about the `-o` option of `sort`? I guess it's about 90% likely that you do but if not I think you will find it tasty. I use it frequently.

   • Embed this notice
     Julia Evans (b0rk@social.jvns.ca)'s status on Monday, 16-Dec-2024 11:30:50 JST Julia Evans

     in reply to

     • Mark Dominus

     @mjd i've heard of it (maybe bash has it too?) but it's not clear to me if people actually use it in practice

   • Embed this notice
     Mark Dominus (mjd@mathstodon.xyz)'s status on Monday, 16-Dec-2024 11:30:52 JST Mark Dominus

     in reply to

     @b0rk Have you seen `csh`'s "noclobber" feature? If you had `noclobber` set, then `cmd > file` would fail without erasing `file`, if it already existed. You would have to explicitly demand its clobbering with `cmd >! file`.