Errata

When mail notification is turned on, each time you get incoming mail, the bell rings

change to
When mail notification is turned on, the bell rings each time you receive mail, and the first few lines of the message

Dear O'Reilly,

I am a technical writer/editor, with experience in Unix Shell Programming, a degree in Mathematics and Linguistics, and over 25 years experience as a technical translator, editor, and technical writer. I would be interested in free-lance/consulting projects, editing and/or proofreading books and other manuscripts.

I used an earlier edition of Unix in a Nutshell to learn Shell Programming and recall finding minor misprints in that edition, and thought of glancing through the fourth edition to check for errors, misprints, etc. The list below is from a very brief scan of the volume.

Please let me know if the formatting here is unclear.

Sincerely,

Robert Silverman
rh.silverman@att.net

P.S. Incidentally, all occurrences of "few" and "several" should be replaced by actual numbers (or it should be stated that the actual number can be specified, depends on environment, etc.)

MISPRINTS IN UNIX IN A NUTSHELL, 4th edition

27 -biff
When mail notification is turned on, each time you get incoming mail, the bell rings

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When mail notification is turned on, the bell rings each time you receive mail, and the first few lines of the message

131 --author
different than

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different from

132 -z
display the security context so that it will fit

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display the security context to fit

134 -L, n
macros calls

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macro calls

171 +beg_page
supports supplying an end page end_page also

chamge to
also supports an end page end_page

-c
such as ^C), and

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(such as ^C) and

233 xargs 4-5
allowing command to process more arguments than it could normally handle at once

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allowing command to process more arguments (up to ? in each bundle, and up to ?? bundles)

248 -o origin
One way change

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One-way change

since the last time files were synchronized

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since the files were last synchronized

-y
and you’re sure you know what you’re doing when you synchronize;

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and the effects of the synchronization are known;

311 -o option
Filesystem specific ... comma separated

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Filesystem-specific ... comma-separated

323 jarsigner
.SF signature file, and a .DSA

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.SF signature file and a .DSA

since they allow passwords to be seen

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since they make passwords visible

so make sure no one else can see your screen when using such options!

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; your screen should be shielded when using jarsigner.

355 cmd<< text 6
here document

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Here document

Redirection using file descriptors

cmd m>&n
that would normally goes to file descriptor m is sent to file descriptor n instead

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that normally goes to file descriptor m is sent to file descriptor n

cmd m<@n
that would normally come from file descriptor m comes from file descriptor n instead

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that normally comes from file descriptor m comes from file descriptor n

423
This is often how a shell archive is “wrapped”, bundling text for distribution

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This is often how a shell archive is “wrapped” to bundle text for distribution.

458 onintr 6
needs to run

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must run

459 rehash 2
during

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in

The entry for egrep says "Regular expressions are described in Chapter 6." CHapter 6 is about package management; chapter 7 is the one on pattern matching.

The entry for egrep says "Regular expressions are described in Chapter 6." CHapter 6 is about package management; chapter 7 is the one on pattern matching.

different than

change to
different from

display the security context so that it will fit

change to
display the security context to fit

macros calls

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macro calls

supports supplying an end page end_page also

chamge to
also supports an end page end_page

(such as ^C), and

(such as ^C) and

allowing command to process more arguments than it could normally handle at once

change to
allowing command to process more arguments (up to ? in each bundle, and up to ?? bundles)

One way change

change to
One-way change

and

since the last time files were synchronized

change to
since the files were last synchronized

and you're sure you know what you?re doing when you synchronize;

change to
and the effects of the synchronization are known;

Filesystem specific ... comma separated

change to
Filesystem-specific ... comma-separated

since they allow passwords to be seen

change to
since they make passwords visible

so make sure no one else can see your screen when using such options!

change to
; your screen should be shielded when using jarsigner.

here document

change to
Here document

cmd m>&n
that would normally goes to file descriptor m is sent to file descriptor n instead

change to
that normally goes to file descriptor m is sent to file descriptor n

cmd m<@n
that would normally come from file descriptor m comes from file descriptor n instead

change to
that normally comes from file descriptor m comes from file descriptor n

This is often how a shell archive is ?wrapped?, bundling text for distribution

change to
This is often how a shell archive is ?wrapped? to bundle text for distribution.

needs to run

change to
must run

during

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in