4.3bsd dbx(1) misfeature

[Naim Abdullah]

The 4.3bsd dbx has a misfeature in that it insists on an object file name
even if the user does not wish to supply one. It aborts when
no name is given:

% dbx
dbx version 3.22 of 5/1/87 13:51 (ethyl).
Type 'help' for help.
enter object file name (default is `a.out'): <--user hits return
dbx: fatal error: can't read a.out
% exit

Dbx can be useful without any object files. For example, it has a C expression
evaluator, so sometimes I use it as an interactive "expr" that can do floating
point arithmetic in infix notation. I have to give /bin/ed as a bogus file
name, when using the 4.3bsd dbx for doing calculations.

Fortunately, the SunOS 3.5 dbx does not have this problem. Kudos to Sun for
this!

		      Naim Abdullah
		      Dept. of EECS,
		      Northwestern University

		      Internet: naim at eecs.nwu.edu
		      Uucp: {oddjob, chinet, att}!nucsrl!naim