On Fri, 2006-06-09 at 13:57 +0100, Timothy Murphy wrote: > >>> If you normally run "yum update" you can change your procedure to simply > >>> run "yum --exclude=dovecot* update". > >> > >> Don't you have to say "yum --exclude=dovecot\* update" ? > > > > I've never had to escape the * in this situation. YMMV, > > I stand corrected. > I assumed the shell would try to expand the "*", > and when it could not would either give a warning or omit the argument. If it can't substitute a matching wildcard filename expansion it passes the original text unchanged. > But I've never really understood the subtleties of bash. I'd probably quote it like: yum --exclude='dovecot*' update as a matter of habit to emphasize that I don't want any substitutions, but in this case double quotes or \ escaping would all be the same. It's worth spending some time learning a few details about shell variable/wildcard substitutions and i/o redirection. The basics haven't changed in decades and they can save you a lot of work. -- Les Mikesell lesmikesell@xxxxxxxxx
