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<TITLE>RE: [plug] The meaning of life</TITLE>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2>> -----Original Message-----</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>> From: James Devenish [<A HREF="mailto:devenish@guild.uwa.edu.au">mailto:devenish@guild.uwa.edu.au</A>]</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>> Sent: Wednesday, 4 August 2004 3:28 PM</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>> To: plug@plug.linux.org.au; jturner@bsis.com.au</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>> Subject: Re: [plug] The meaning of life</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>> </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>> </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>> In message <OOECKHEBCBMDKGKDPJLHCEGHENAA.jturner@bsis.com.au></FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>> on Wed, Aug 04, 2004 at 03:17:39PM +0800, Jay Turner wrote:</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>> > > > $ whatis "the meaning of life" | wc -c</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>> > ></FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>> > > On RedHat 9 the meaning of life is apparently 104. :( </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>> But Debian knows</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>> > > better. :)</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>> > </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>> > So what is the meaning of life</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>> </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>> It's an in-joke ;-) And asking the above question may make </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>> you appear to</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>> be a space alien (and I, for one, welcome our...&c). The answer is:</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>> </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>> % whatis 'the meaning of life'|wc -c</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>> 42</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>> </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>> Just FYI, alternative ("incorrect") responses are numerous. </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>> The "trick"</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>> works by counting the number of "characters" (letters & punctuation</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>> symbols) in the response to the whatis command. When the response is</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>> "the meaning of life: nothing appropriate." (as it is under </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>> Debian), the</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>> number of characters is 42. Some platforms might not have the trailing</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>> full stop, some platforms might return "the meaning of life: </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>> not found",</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>> and I know of at least one platform that produces no output (implying</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>> the meaning of life is zero!!). RedHat must be doing something else</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>> entirely, or it is just very verbose (such that the number of </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>> characters</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>> is 104).</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2>And FYI: we tried this with a mandrake 9.2 and a mandrake 10 box and it is the version of whatis that is the error (I think). It is not being passed as "The meaning of life", but rather as four seperate arguements, "the" "Meaning" " of" and "life" and hence gives the 104 characters... :( Apparently this is very wrong in regards to the double quotes...</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>Phil.</FONT>
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