Abbott and Costello Meet Unix

Costello calls Abbott with some questions about UNIX.

- Costello: What is the command that will tell me the revision code of a program?

- Abbott: Yes, that's correct.

- Costello: No, what is it?

- Abbott: Yes.

- Costello: So, which is the one?

- Abbott: No. 'which' is used to find the program.

- Costello: Stop this. Who are you?

- Abbott: Use 'who am i' not 'who r yoo'. You can also 'finger yoo' to get information about 'yoo'.

- Costello: All I want to know is what finds the revision code?

- Abbott: Use 'what'.

- Costello: That's what I am trying to find out. Isn't that true?

- Abbott: No. 'true' gives you 0.

- Costello: Which one?

- Abbott: 'true' gives you 0. 'which programname'

- Costello: Let's get back to my problem. What program? How do I find it?

- Abbott: Type 'find / -name it -print' to find 'it'. Type 'what program' to get the revision code.

- Costello: I want to find the revision code.

- Abbott: You can't 'find revisioncode', you must use 'what program'.

- Costello: Which command will do what I need?

- Abbott: No. 'which command' will find 'command'.

- Costello: I think I understand. Let me write that.

- Abbott: You can 'write that' only if 'that' is a user on your system.

- Costello: Write what?

- Abbott: No. 'write that'. 'what program'.

- Costello: Cut that out!

- Abbott: Yes. those are valid files for 'cut'. Don't forget the options.

- Costello: Do you always do this?

- Abbott: 'du' will give you disk usage.

- Costello: HELP!

- Abbott: 'help' is only used for Source Code Control System (SCCS).

- Costello: You make me angry.

- Abbott: No, I don't 'make me' angry but I did 'make programname' when I was upset once.

- Costello: I don't want to make trouble, so no more.

- Abbott: No 'more'? 'which' will help you find 'more'. Every system has 'more'.

- Costello: Nice help! I'm confused more now!

- Abbott: Understand that since 'help' is such a small program, it is better not to 'nice help'. and 'more now' is not allowed but 'at now' is. Unless of course 'now' is a file name.

- Costello: This is almost as confusing as my PC.

- Abbott: I didn't know you needed help with 'pc'. Let me get you to the Pascal compiler team.