[Tutor] Dumb question on emacs and python ...

[hcohen2]

Neal McBurnett wrote:

>The "*" is a special character used differently in different contexts.
>To the shell, it is a wildcard, matching anything.
>In a listing of files (by, e.g. ls), it sometimes is appended to
>simply indicate that the file is executable.
>
>If you're just starting to learn emacs, (or any other editor) I would
>just suggest it can take a while to pick up some of the quirks.  I
>personally absolutely love emacs and the great power it provides for
>working on many many types of files.  But it does have a learning
>curve.
>
>You may have a file that is actually named 
>    fgrepwc_allcnt.py*
>which can add a lot of problems and confusion as has been
>noted.
>
>running
>      mv 'fgrepwc_allcnt.py*' fgrepwc_allcnt.py
>will change the name after which you can open it up fresh in emacs.
>Note the quotes - they cause the * to be treated as a real character.
>
>Neal McBurnett                 http://bcn.boulder.co.us/~neal/
>Signed and/or sealed mail encouraged.  GPG/PGP Keyid: 2C9EBA60
>
>On Sat, Dec 27, 2003 at 02:01:47PM -0500, hcohen2 wrote:
>  
>
>>Marilyn Davis wrote:
>>    
>>
>>>On Sat, 27 Dec 2003, hcohen2 wrote:
>>>      
>>>
>>>>Marilyn,
>>>>Just added a few more characters to the file name: was fgrepwc.py* to 
>>>>fgrepwc_allcnt.py*.
>>>>        
>>>>
>>>Well, that '*' at the end messes you up.  Try subtracting that and
>>>maybe emacs will behave for you.
>>>      
>>>
>>That's what I thought too, but (repeated it again) openning the file 
>>without the '*' yields an empty file.  It looks crazy to me too.
>>
>>I guess I am just going to write the file by pasting lines, or typing it 
>>in new.  The change in appearance and the failure to execute are too 
>>strong hints to ignore.
>>
>>Thanks for your help.
>>Herschel
>>    
>>
>
>  
>
Well the copying instructions worked with the new file showing the 
expected color coding.  Moreover, it attempts to execute, but is 
probably hung is a bit of flawed loop code (mine).

Now I can concentrate on trying to get it right!

Thanks to everyone.