[olug] Unix Tip: OUTPUT A FILE IN REVERSE

Christopher Cashell topher at zyp.org
Thu Apr 24 07:07:12 UTC 2003


At Wed, 23 Apr 03, Unidentified Flying Banana Daniel G. Linder, said:
> William E. Kempf wrote:
> > 1) Where do *nix programmers go to learn how to name things?
> 
> If I remember correctly, the "cat" command name came from an old machine
> code command...or is that the LISP functions? :)

It's the Lisp functions, 'car' and 'cdr'. ;-)

'cat' comes from the word concatenate[1], which is what cat's original
purpose was.  Somewhere along the line, it became the standard program
for reading text, though. ;-)

> Dan

  [1] ObDefinition: add by linking or joining so as to form a chain or
      series; "concatenate terms"; "concatenate characters";

-- 
| Christopher
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| A: No.                                         |
| Q: Should I include quotations after my reply? |
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