Non Obvious commands or missuses of common commands

From: McFadden, Mike <mmcfadden_at_cmh.edu>
Date: Thu Mar 8 11:06:52 2001

>('The DIR command
>on this computer doesn't print a directory, it's Delete I-nodes
>Recursively and will wipe the entire filesystem' would tell me NOT to
>type DIR under any circumstances!)

Are there any commands like that? That is, are there any exceedingly
mundane commands on some systems that have exceedingly jeopardous results
on other systems?

I used to define a lot of commands in DCL in my startup file that I commonly
used and named them with weird names. I have accidentally typed the same
command on a PC and ended up with unexpected results. After 5-10 years of
using the command on the VAX I could barely remember the actual DCL. I also
used nested command procedures.

$GETMRI
$DMPMRI
$COMPRESSMRI
$DECOMPRESSMRI
$CLEAN

My clean command deleted all files in the directory and removed any
subdirectories. I once typed clean when I was in one of my source code
directories. Lots of fast CTRL-C and slamming of keys trying to abort it.
We were all logged in with lots of privileges which can be a problem.

Mike
mmcfadden_at_cmh.edu
Received on Thu Mar 08 2001 - 11:06:52 GMT