7 Aug
2014
7 Aug
'14
4:24 a.m.
Davwe Horsfall:
I was surprised when "chdir" became "cd", but I suppose it fits the
philosophy of 2-letter commands.
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Don't forget that the original spelling, in the PDP-7 UNIX that
had no published manual, was ch.
The 1/e manual spells it chdir. I remember that in one of
Dennis's retrospective papers, he remarks on the change, and
says he can't remember why.
I once asked in the UNIX room if anyone could recall why ch
changed to chdir. Someone, I forget who, suggested it was
because the working directory was the only thing that could
be changed: no chmod or chown in the PDP-7 days. I don't know
whether that's true.
Norman Wilson
Toronto ON