Ilya Zakharevich <ilya@math.ohio-state.edu> wrote > M.J.T. Guy writes: > > Hmmm... perhaps it can guess. Suppose we put a test in the perl > > argument processing "does a file of this name exist?" analogous to > > the one in Tom's proposed patch. What genuine usage would that > > bite? > > Open "foo |" as a file if it exists, or as a pipe otherwise looks like > a much deeper magic than what one would ever want. Err... this subthread isn't about magic open - its about the danger of files called things like "-e;system'rm -rf /';". > Why not use 3-arg open in cases when you do not want magic? Of course 3-arg open is valuable. But the original topic of this thread is "How do we protect people from themselves when they aren't using 3-arg open?". In particular with <>, where the option of 3-arg open doesn't exist. Mike GuyThread Next