"[Top Secret]" <web401a5(_at_)topsecret(_dot_)net> writes:
hi, in reading this list and the procmail docs i have come accross a term
i am unfamiliar with: sed. as in "a sed script" and recently i think i
saw it used as a verb in a .procmailrc (do you know how long i worked
with this before i found out what "rc" means? [run commands] *whew!*).
"sed" is name of a program on UNIX systems. It stands for Stream
EDitor, but in a sense, it's now the name of the language understood by
the program, just a 'C' is the name of the language understood by the C
compiler.
As for "rc", Dennis Ritchie himself has publically stated that it
originally stood for "Run Com", *not* run commands. What does it mean
*now*? I would say that it means the named file is full of commands to
some program, almost certainly to be parsed at startup of the program,
but it no longer makes sense as an acronym.
Philip Guenther
I like to tell people:
Just think of 'rc' as "resource control" files.
That's not where the letters come from -- but
that's what they do and it's easier to remember.
--
Jim Dennis,
info(_at_)mail(_dot_)starshine(_dot_)org
Proprietor,
consulting(_at_)mail(_dot_)starshine(_dot_)org
Starshine Technical Services http://www.starshine.org