Around 12:54pm on Wednesday, April 29, 2009 (UK time), Patrick O'Callaghan scrawled:
On Wed, 2009-04-29 at 11:15 +0100, Cannon, Andrew C wrote:
> Mark,
>
> In *nix space, all files that start with a dot are classed as 'hidden'
> files. Thus, they won't be normally viewable. It may be possible to
> change the view settings in your chosen application, but this probably
> changes from application to application.
This is in fact merely a convention of the "ls" program, not of the *nix
systems themselves. The fact that some other apps have chosen to follow
it (including many of the file choosers out there) doesn't alter this.
It's more than just a ls convention. However I agree it is just a
convention, the files are intrinsically different from "normal" files.
Interestingly, Windows treats dot files as hidden files, and you can
view/hide them from Folder Options in Windows Explorer.
From The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0, 24 Jul 1996 -
http://infomotions.com/etexts/gutenberg/dirs/etext97/jarg400.htm
":dot file: [Unix] /n./ A file that is not visible by default to normal
directory-browsing tools (on Unix, files named with a leading dot are,
by convention, not normally presented in directory listings)."
Also from man bash:
match-hidden-files (On) This variable, when set to On, causes readline
to match files whose names begin with a ‘.’ (hidden files) when
performing filename completion, unless the leading ‘.’ is supplied by
the user in the filename to be completed.
Steve
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www.stevesearle.com
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