2 ms·

That's a nice feature, but it should definitely be turned on as a default rather than hidden behind an option.

• pdkl95 12y ago
  That would break a very large number of existing scripts that depend on being able to replace a file with a traditional ">" redirection. You can set it as the default for your own interactive shell if you want by adding set -o noclobber to your ~/.bashrc file. It is probably a good idea to add it after the line that check if it is being used non-interactively, which probably looks something like this if [[ $- != *i* ]] ; then # Shell is non-interactive return fi # add interactive-shell-only settings here While you're editing .bashrc, you may want to also add these options that are available in modern bash that I find make the experience a lot nicer. # support new glob patterns like !(foo|bar|...) # for example, this move everything EXCPET the .h files # mv !(*.h) /some/dir/ shopt -s extglob # support ** in globs to match zero-or-more-recursive-directories shopt -s globstar # if you're annoyed at having to type "nohup" to prevent # programs from closing when you close the shell window shopt -u huponexit
  • girvo 12y ago
    Right, it definitely would break a lot of existing scripts, so I understand why its not a default. The thing is though, that really proves the argument that some parts of Unix have a bad out of the box user experience! I personally love Unix and find it amazingly powerful, but I've made the same mistakes as everyone and killed entire boxes, and really with some simple UX changes that could be fixed in the bulk of cases. Edit: I forgot to add, thanks for the detailed answer!