Re:A shell colon does nothing. Use it anyway.
by refp on Sunday July 26, 2026 @02:10AM
(#49055246)
First of all, I must salute you on the joke; well put haha!
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It is a (contrived) example of usage where a command is required and `:` can fill in the blanks. There are certainly scenarios where negating an expression becomes harder than doing the "dumb" way, and I for one has written code where `:` can be used as a placeholder meaning "fill this in later" or equivalent.
With that said, 100% agree with you that in actual "production" code - there is always a cleaner way.
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It is a (contrived) example of usage where a command is required and `:` can fill in the blanks. There are certainly scenarios where negating an expression becomes harder than doing the "dumb" way, and I for one has written code where `:` can be used as a placeholder meaning "fill this in later" or equivalent.
With that said, 100% agree with you that in actual "production" code - there is always a cleaner way.