[Tutor] A question about using stdin/out/err vs named files

[George R Goffe]

Hi,

Wow. Lots of feedback. REALLY GOOD FEEDBACK!

This was my first question to this list. Let me clarify my question.

I want to use tst.py as follows:

tst.py input-file output-file OR
cat data-file | tst.py - output-file OR
cat data-file | tst.py output-file

tst.py input-file output-file works well
tst.py - output-file works well

The question boils down to "tst.py output-file"... which is a "parsing the args" question which you "guys" have caused me to think more clearly about. If there's just 1 arg, consider it an output-file and read from stdin and write to output-file ONLY if output-file does not exist.

Thank you all for your very helpful and informative responses.

Regards,

George...