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Originally Posted by
wabard
dangerous?, maybe... I've been using this syntax since 1979 with no problems. Maybe I've just been lucky.
Either that, or had the intuitive sense to know when using it is a bad idea.
I've answered several threads on this forum about mysterious problems with the "for x in `cat foo`" design where data had been mysteriously lost or ignored. They hit the limit, of course -- the limit's pretty small on some systems.
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Obviously limitations exist when using grave accents... the user should be aware of them or suffer the consequences.
Agreed. Unfortunately, they can get away with it for quite a long time until the habit becomes ingrained. Most people who use it don't seem to understand the implications, namely, the backticks have to finish
first -- they seem to think of them like pipes. I saw a poster suggest using it to process data already known to be a 40-gig flatfile...
When nothing is known about the size of the file, `cat foo` should be discouraged, I feel. Even for small files, I see little reason beyond habit to use it...