Comments on: Corrected notes on the feeding of yes to yes http://boingboing.net/2013/03/14/corrected-notes-on-the-feeding.html Brain candy for Happy Mutants Fri, 24 May 2013 23:15:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.1 By: KWillets http://boingboing.net/2013/03/14/corrected-notes-on-the-feeding.html#comment-1679483 KWillets Thu, 14 Mar 2013 21:12:00 +0000 http://boingboing.net/?p=218825#comment-1679483 M:   Ah. I'd like to have an argument, please. R:    Certainly sir. Have you been here before? M:   No, I haven't, this is my first time. R:     I see. Well, do you want to have just one argument, or were you thinking of taking a course? ...etc... M:   Ah. I’d like to have an argument, please.
R:    Certainly sir. Have you been here before?
M:   No, I haven’t, this is my first time.
R:     I see. Well, do you want to have just one argument, or were you thinking of taking a course?

…etc…

]]> By: pasq242 http://boingboing.net/2013/03/14/corrected-notes-on-the-feeding.html#comment-1679407 pasq242 Thu, 14 Mar 2013 19:59:00 +0000 http://boingboing.net/?p=218825#comment-1679407 I thought the backticks were being deprecated, anyway.  Shouldn't the syntax be: yes $(yes no) I thought the backticks were being deprecated, anyway.  Shouldn’t the syntax be:
yes $(yes no)

]]> By: Miramon http://boingboing.net/2013/03/14/corrected-notes-on-the-feeding.html#comment-1679388 Miramon Thu, 14 Mar 2013 19:37:00 +0000 http://boingboing.net/?p=218825#comment-1679388 Yeah, this is a big deal. With the wrong quote char, the whole point is lost. Yeah, this is a big deal. With the wrong quote char, the whole point is lost.

]]> By: SamSam http://boingboing.net/2013/03/14/corrected-notes-on-the-feeding.html#comment-1679363 SamSam Thu, 14 Mar 2013 19:08:00 +0000 http://boingboing.net/?p=218825#comment-1679363 We should probably have a correction on the correction, describing which character is a backtick. ` We should probably have a correction on the correction, describing which character is a backtick. `

]]> By: billstewart http://boingboing.net/2013/03/14/corrected-notes-on-the-feeding.html#comment-1679331 billstewart Thu, 14 Mar 2013 18:31:00 +0000 http://boingboing.net/?p=218825#comment-1679331 Yeah, it really makes a difference.  yes 'yes no' will just print     yes no a lot of times.  yes `yes no` executes the stuff in the backtick, and the shell uses it to build an argument string for the outer yes command.  The stuff in the backquotes prints     no an infinite number of times.  In an old-fashioned Unix shell, there's a limit to how big a command line can be, so the shell would probably accumulate the first 1023 or so bytes of "no", maybe strip the newlines, and fork the outer "yes" command with that as input.  Fancier shells may use malloc to build a much larger character string to buffer the infinite amount of "no", but it shouldn't bother the operating system any more than any other command that's leaking memory (but since it's your shell, it won't give a prompt back and might not be good at responding to ^C.) I tried it with bash, and the shell complained about not being able to allocate more than [some big number] of bytes and crashed. Apparently the standard /bin/sh on Ubuntu is dash, and it ran for a while and then complained "Segmentation fault (core dumped)" which is also a pretty classic error message. Yeah, it really makes a difference. 
yes ‘yes no’ will just print
    yes no
a lot of times. 
yes `yes no` executes the stuff in the backtick, and the shell uses it to build an argument string for the outer yes command. 
The stuff in the backquotes prints
    no
an infinite number of times.  In an old-fashioned Unix shell, there’s a limit to how big a command line can be, so the shell would probably accumulate the first 1023 or so bytes of “no”, maybe strip the newlines, and fork the outer “yes” command with that as input.  Fancier shells may use malloc to build a much larger character string to buffer the infinite amount of “no”, but it shouldn’t bother the operating system any more than any other command that’s leaking memory (but since it’s your shell, it won’t give a prompt back and might not be good at responding to ^C.)

I tried it with bash, and the shell complained about not being able to allocate more than [some big number] of bytes and crashed.
Apparently the standard /bin/sh on Ubuntu is dash, and it ran for a while and then complained “Segmentation fault (core dumped)” which is also a pretty classic error message.

]]> By: nixiebunny http://boingboing.net/2013/03/14/corrected-notes-on-the-feeding.html#comment-1679295 nixiebunny Thu, 14 Mar 2013 18:06:00 +0000 http://boingboing.net/?p=218825#comment-1679295 Why is the page not displaying the backtick as a backtick, but as an apostrophe?  Why is the page not displaying the backtick as a backtick, but as an apostrophe? 

]]> By: xzzy http://boingboing.net/2013/03/14/corrected-notes-on-the-feeding.html#comment-1679281 xzzy Thu, 14 Mar 2013 17:52:00 +0000 http://boingboing.net/?p=218825#comment-1679281 yes | xargs -n 1 -P 0 yes  Might be a little closer to what the original author was after, but it won't crash your system. A ctrl-c will recover things, but anyone else on the system who tries to do anything will get a bunch of "resource unavailable" errors. yes | xargs -n 1 -P 0 yes 

Might be a little closer to what the original author was after, but it won’t crash your system. A ctrl-c will recover things, but anyone else on the system who tries to do anything will get a bunch of “resource unavailable” errors.

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