On 2/26/06, Shriramana Sharma
1. ave a number of i586-mingw32msvc-* files in my /usr/bin directory. 2. I moved them to a subdirectory named i586-mingw32msvc. 3. Now if I do ls i5* under /usr/bin, I get the contents of the i586-mingw32msvc subdirectory -- how is this?
If I move only some of the i5* files to the subdirectory, I get:
i586-mingw32msvc: . .. I have not seen ls commands in other directories automatically listing subdirectory contents unless specifically told to do so. Why does /usr/bin alone behave this way?
Shriramana, this is normal. ls expands wildcards for files and subdirectories. Look at this: kenji:/opt # ls . gnome kde3 mtest.c snavigator .. insight mono-1.1.8.3 netbeans-4.1 MozillaFirefox jdk1.5.0_04 mozilla novell kenji:/opt # ls m* mtest.c mono-1.1.8.3: . MonoDoc.desktop bin lib .. Release Notes.desktop etc share Mono Project WebSite.desktop Start Here.desktop html uninstall MonoDevelop.desktop Uninstall.desktop include mozilla: . .. bin include installed-chrome.d lib share My /opt directory contains two subdirectories and a file starting with m. "ls m*" causes both to be listed: the contents of the subdirs and the file. \Steve