[TUHS] Command line options and complexity

[arnold at skeeve.com]

Dave Horsfall <dave at horsfall.org> wrote:

> On Wed, 4 Mar 2020, Tyler Adams wrote:
>
> > > These go all the way back to v7 unix, where ls has an option to 
> > > reverse the sort order (which could have been done by passing the 
> > > output to tac).
> > 
> > Good point. Why was this done in v7 unix and why wasn't it thrown out?

There was no tac in V7 Unix. It was first posted to USENET, I don't
know by who, and picked up by Linux and *BSD.

> And speaking of "tac" (which I never saw), I couldn't think of a single 
> use for "rev" (although no doubt I'll now get told).

It's useful for reading Hebrew sent in plain text email :-). Hebrew is
read right to left but stored in physical order (left to right) in files.

Arnold