Re: If you're using linux can you run this command please?
- Posted by ghaberek (admin) Sep 01, 2015
- 2303 views
Don't infer that because people are apparently typing the commands in verbatim that they do not know the other ways it could be done.
The problem here is that using the cat/grep combo does not let grep know anything about the files it's searching. So when you cat a wildcard and pass that to grep, the grep process cannot possibly tell you in which file it found the content you were looking for. Do you see the problem there? How do we know which file that matched the pattern /etc/*-release was the one that contained the search string? It seems unlikely that the mere presence of the information on the system would be helpful to the OP, and that it would be more relevant to know which file contained said information. Otherwise we may have a false positive and send him on a wild goose chase. "Yes, my system contains that information, but it turns out that what you were looking for was in another file."
It is faster and less error prone to copy and paste the challenge command and then paste the results. This is what people ought to do.
No. It most definitely is not. Following directions blindly is unwise and could very well lead to errors in the process or worse, people screwing up their systems because they were asked to enter a command that they (or maybe even the requester) did not properly understand. If the question being asked is flawed, then we should all do better to ensure we are solving the problem instead of answering the question.
-Greg
