Path: csiph.com!x330-a1.tempe.blueboxinc.net!usenet.pasdenom.info!selfless.tophat.at!newsfeed.xs4all.nl!newsfeed6.news.xs4all.nl!xs4all!novso.com!69.16.177.242.MISMATCH!cyclone02.ams2.highwinds-media.com!news.highwinds-media.com!npeersf01.ams.highwinds-media.com!newsfe28.ams2.POSTED!00000000!not-for-mail From: Jonathan de Boyne Pollard User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-GB; rv:1.9.2.17) Gecko/20110414 Thunderbird/3.1.10 MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp,comp.lang.python,alt.usage.english,comp.unix.programmer Subject: Re: English Idiom in Unix: Directory Recursively References: In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Message-ID: Lines: 23 NNTP-Posting-Host: 86.20.254.174 X-Complaints-To: http://netreport.virginmedia.com X-Trace: newsfe28.ams2 1305875152 86.20.254.174 (Fri, 20 May 2011 07:05:52 UTC) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 20 May 2011 07:05:52 UTC Organization: virginmedia.com Date: Fri, 20 May 2011 08:00:58 +0100 Xref: x330-a1.tempe.blueboxinc.net comp.lang.lisp:3571 comp.lang.python:5829 comp.unix.programmer:624 > 〈English Idiom in Unix: Directory Recursively〉 > http://xahlee.org/comp/idiom_directory_recursively.html > > ------------------------------------------ > English Idiom in Unix: Directory Recursively > > Xah Lee, 2011-05-17 > > Today, let's discuss something in the category of lingustics. > > You know how in unix tools, when you want to delete the whole > directory and all sub-directories and files in it, it's referred as > “recursive”? > > [...] > > Though, if you think about it, it's not exactly a correct description. > “Recursive”, or “recursion”, refers to a particular type of algorithm, > [...] Indeed. And the algorithms that are employed to perform the operations so described are recursive.