Why does more(1) not leave an exit status?

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2 total messages Started by rouben Wed, 28 Nov 1990 17:26

#1823

Author: rouben
Date: Wed, 28 Nov 1990 17:26

15 lines
1187 bytes

On a couple of different systems I have tried, more(1) always exits
with status 0.  I would have expected more(1) to exit with a not-zero
status when invoked with a non-existent file as its standin.

Both cat(1) and tail(1) exit with status 1 when trying to open a 
non-existent file.  Why not more(1)?

Is this due to an oversight or due to a conscious decision?  Does 
anyone know?

--
Rouben Rostamian                            Telephone: (301) 455-2458
Department of Mathematics and Statistics    e-mail:
University of Maryland Baltimore County     bitnet: rostamian@umbc
Baltimore, MD 21228,  U.S.A.                internet: rostamian@umbc3.umbc.edu

Re: Why does more(1) not leave an exit status?

#1855

Author: Felix Lee
Date: Wed, 28 Nov 1990 23:02

14 lines
1015 bytes

If more(1) or less(1) were to produce a different exit status for each
different type of exit action, you could build intelligent wrappers
around your pager.
  0 - normal exit (falling off the bottom)
  1 - quit (q)
  2 - next file (:n)
  3 - previous file (:p)
(and various error exits)

And then something like "zmore" would be able to deal with multiple
files properly.  And you might rewrite "rn" to allow using an external
pager, rather than its baroque internal version.
--
Felix Lee	flee@cs.psu.edu

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