Provided by:
bar_1.11.0+debian-2_i386 
NAME
bar - show information about a data transfer
SYNOPSIS
bar [ I/O-options ] [ display-options ] [ color-options ]
[ input-file ] [ output-file ]
[ -h | --help ] [ -v | --version ]
DESCRIPTION
Bar is a simple tool to process a stream of data and print a display
for the user on stderr showing (a) the amount of data passed, (b) the
throughput of the data transfer, and, if the total size of the data
stream is known, (c) estimated time remaining, percent complete, and a
progress bar.
Bar was originally written for the purpose of estimating the amount of
time needed to transfer large amounts (many, many gigabytes) of data
across a network. (Usually in an SSH/tar pipe.)
I/O COMMAND LINE OPTIONS
-if input-file
--in-file input-file
Read input from input-file. Default: stdin
-of output-file
--out-file output-file
Write output to output-file. If the output file is a directory, then
bar will attempt to create a file in the output directory with the
same name as the input file, and attempt to copy the input file mode
as well as it's data. Default: stdout
Please notice that if no -if, --in-file, -of, or --out-file options are
specified on the command line, and an unknown command line option is
encountered, then bar will assume that the first unknown command line
option is a path to an input file, and the second (if found) is a path
to an output file.
-s size
--size size
Expect an input stream of size bytes.
When reading a regular file or a link to a regular file, bar will
extract the file size on it's own. However, this flag is useful for
reading from a character- or block-special device file, or from a
pipe. size may be followed by 'k', 'm', 'g', 't', 'p', or 'e' for
kilobytes, megabytes, gigabytes, terabytes, petabytes, or exabytes,
respectively (see also the -k option below). Alternatively, size may
also be specified in terms of 'b' for blocks (see the -bl option
below). See examples below.
-c size
--completed size
Instruct bar that size bytes of the data stream have already been
copied, and that this is a continuation of a previous data stream.
Note that use of this option will throw off throughput and ETA
calculations at first, but they should settle down as the transfer
continues.
-bs buffer-size
--buffer-size buffer-size
Allocate an I/O buffer of buffer-size bytes. The same modifiers
may apply here ('k', 'm', 'g', 't', 'p', 'e' and 'b') as for the -s
flag above. Changing the buffer size can improve throughput,
depending on your application of bar. For fast I/O operations, say
from a ramdisk for instance, it might be worth your while to
experiment with a large buffer (circa 1MB for instance). But for
slow I/O operations, like from a tape drive, you could merely be
wasting your memory. Default: 52488 (512KB)
-th rate
--throttle rate
Restrict I/O throughput to rate bytes per second. The same
modifiers apply here ('k', 'm', 'g', 't', 'p', 'e' and 'b') as for
the -s flag above.
-i seconds
--interval seconds
Update the display every seconds seconds. Default: 1 second
-t microseconds
--timeout microseconds
The number of microseconds to wait for a change in I/O state before
select() times out. Default: 250000 (1/4 second)
-k 1000|1024
--kilo 1000|1024
Use either 1000 or 1024 as the definition of a kilobyte. Default:
1024
-bl size
--block-size size
When reading sizes from the command line that are specified in
terms of blocks, assume a single block is size bytes. Size may be
followed by 'k', 'm', 'g', 't', 'p', or 'e' for kilobytes,
megabytes, gigabytes, terabytes, petabytes, or exabytes,
respectively. Block size must be set before specifying any sizes
in terms of blocks or the default value will be used instead.
Specifying size in terms of 'b' for blocks is not allowed for this
option. Default: 512
DISPLAY COMMAND LINE OPTIONS
-sw width
--screen-width width
Assume a screen width of width characters.
Bar will attempt to retrieve the width of the terminal it is running
on, and will adjust that width if the terminal is resized. If bar
cannot determine the terminal width, then bar will assume a default
width of 79 characters. Use the --screen-width command line option
to override this behavior and specify a fixed width for bar to use.
(When this option is used, bar will ignore terminal resized signals
and continue to use the value provided by the user.)
-sw-1 | --screen-width-minus-one
-sw-0 | --screen-width-minus-zero
Instruct bar to use either the entire column width reported by
termio, or one less than reported by termio. I.e. If termio reports
that you are running bar in a terminal that's 80 characters wide,
using the command line option --screen-width-minus-one instructs bar
to only use 79 characters to print the display. If you're using a
terminal or shell that wraps the line whenever bar prints the last
character then this should alleviate that problem. Default is to use
the full terminal's width.
-sh height
--screen-height height
Assume a screen height of height characters.
Bar will attempt to retrieve the height of the terminal it is running
on, and will adjust that height if the terminal is resized. If bar
cannot determine the terminal height, then bar will assume a default
height of 23 characters. Use the --screen-height command line option
to override this behavior and specify a fixed height for bar to use.
(When this option is used, bar will ignore terminal resized signals
and continue to use the value provided by the user.)
Please note that this option is only useful when used in conjunction
with the --info-file command line option. Otherwise bar has no need
to know the screen height in order to perform it's function.
-sh-1 | --screen-height-minus-one
-sh-0 | --screen-height-minus-zero
Instruct bar to use either the entire row height reported by termio,
or one less than reported by termio. I.e. If termio reports that you
are running bar in a terminal that's 24 rows characters high, using
the command line option --screen-height-minus-one instructs bar to
only use 23 rows to print the display. If you're using a terminal or
shell that wraps the line whenever bar prints the last character then
this should alleviate that problem. Default is to use the full
terminal's height.
Please note that this option is only useful when used in conjunction
with the --info-file command line option. Otherwise bar has no need
to know the screen height in order to perform it's function.
-ti string | --title string
Set the title to string.
-dti | -nti
--display-title | --no-title
Turn on/off the title display. Even if on, if no title string is set
then no title will be displayed. Default is on.
-dtw | --display-twiddle
-ntw | --no-twiddle
Turn on/off the twiddle in the display.
-dc | --display-count
-nc | --no-count
Turn on/off the data count in the display. Default is on.
-dcb | -ncb
--display-count-bits | --no-count-bits
Display the data count at bits instead of as bytes. Default is off.
By default bar will display the data count as bytes using the
notation of "B". Using this option, bar will display the throughput
as bits using the notation of "b".
-dth | --display-throughput
-nth | --no-throughput
Turn on/off the data throughput in the display. Default is on.
-dthb | -nthb
--display-throughput-bits | --no-throughput-bits
Display throughput as bits/second instead of as bytes/second.
Default is off.
By default bar will display the throughput as bytes/second using the
notation of "B/s". Using this option, bar will display the
throughput as bits/second using the notation of "b/s".
-dt | --display-time
-nt | --no-time
Turn on/off the time elapsed or eta in the display. Default is on.
-de | --display-elapsed-only
-ne | --no-elapsed-only
Force bar to display the elapsed time instead of the eta. Default is
off.
-dp | --display-percent
-np | --no-percent
Turn on/off percent complete in the display. Default is on.
-db | --display-bar
-nb | --no-bar
Turn on/off the progress bar in the display. Default is on.
-ds | --display-summary
-ns | --no-summary
Turn on/off the summary information displayed when the operation is
complete. Default is on.
-da | --display-all
-dn | --display-none
Turn on/off all displays. -dn is equivalent to -ntw -nc -nth -nt -np
-nb. (Using -dn followed by -db would be equivalent to -ntw -nc -nth
-nt -np.) -da is equivalent to -dtw -dc -dth -dt -dp -db.
-inf infofile | --info-file infofile
Display the information contained in infofile while copying data.
The file infofile is a regular text file containing tidbits of
information broken up into sections. Each section is separated by a
line containing the string "@@@" by itself, with no other characters
on the line, either preceeding or following.
When bar begins, it will count the number of sections within the
file. Bar will then begin by displaying the first section of
information to the display before it draws the status line. Then,
periodically, each of the successive sections will be displayed as
the progress indicator fills up.
The progress of the data transfer is the trigger for each successive
display. For instance, if your information file has exactly four
sections to it, then the first section will be printed as bar begins,
the second section after the data transfer hits 25%, the third at
50%, and the fourth at 75%.
If bar is configured to use ANSI control codes, then the screen will
be cleared before printing a section from the information file.
Otherwise, the contents of the current screen are scolled up and off
the screen.
-dnum | --display-numeric
Do not render the usual display, but instead display an integer
representing the percent of the transfer that is complete, one
integer per line. This output is suitable for piping to other
programs such as dialog(1) or zenity(1). This implies that the total
transfer size must be known by bar, either by finding the size of an
input file directly or by using the --size command line option.
-dw | --display-wait
Wait for the first byte of data to come through before displaying
anything.
COLOR COMMAND LINE OPTIONS
For the following color-specific command line options, the following
keywords are recognized as valid color names: normal, black, red,
green, yellow, blue, magenta, cyan, and white
-dan | --display-ansi
-nan | --no-ansi
Turn on/off the use of ansi color codes in the display.
-spbg color | --space-background color
Use color as the background color for spacing between display
objects. Default: normal
-twfg color | --twiddle-foreground color
-twbg color | --twiddle-background color
Use color as the twiddle color in the display. Default: normal
-twb | --twiddle-bold
-twn | --twiddle-normal
Turn on/off the use of bold font when displaying the twiddle.
Default off
-tifg color | --title-foreground color
-tibg color | --title-background color
Use color as the title color in the display. Default: normal
-tib | --title-bold
-tin | --title-normal
Turn on/off the use of bold font when displaying the title. Default
off
-cfg color | --count-foreground color
-cbg color | --count-background color
Use color as the data count color in the display. Default: normal
-cb | --count-bold
-cn | --count-normal
Turn on/off the use of bold font when displaying the data count.
Default off
-thlfg color | --throughput-label-foreground color
-thlbg color | --throughput-label-background color
Use color as the throughput label color in the display. Default:
normal
-thlb | --throughput-label-bold
-thln | --throughput-label-normal
Turn on/off the use of bold font when displaying the throughput
label. Default off
-thfg color | --throughput-foreground color
-thbg color | --throughput-background color
Use color as the throughput color in the display. Default: normal
-thb | --throughput-bold
-thn | --throughput-normal
Turn on/off the use of bold font when displaying the throughput.
Default off
-tlfg color | --time-label-foreground color
-tlbg color | --time-label-background color
Use color as the time label color in the display. Default: normal
-tlb | --time-label-bold
-tln | --time-label-normal
Turn on/off the use of bold font when displaying the time label.
Default off
-tfg color | --time-foreground color
-tbg color | --time-background color
Use color as the time color in the display. Default: normal
-tb | --time-bold
-tn | --time-normal
Turn on/off the use of bold font when displaying the time. Default
off
-pfg color | --percent-foreground color
-pbg color | --percent-background color
Use color as the percent color in the display. Default: normal
-pb | --percent-bold
-pn | --percent-normal
Turn on/off the use of bold font when displaying the percent.
Default off
-bbfg color | --bar-brace-foreground color
-bbbg color | --bar-brace-background color
Use color as the brace color around the progress bar in the display.
Default: normal
-bbb | --bar-brace-bold
-bbn | --bar-brace-normal
Turn on/off the use of bold font when displaying the bar braces.
Default off
-bfg color | --bar-foreground color
-bbg color | --bar-background color
Use color as the color of the progress bar in the display. Default:
normal
-bb | --bar-bold
-bn | --bar-normal
Turn on/off the use of bold font when displaying the progress bar.
Default off
-bobc | --bar-openbrace-char char
char as the open brace character on the progress bar.
-bcbc | --bar-closebrace-char char
char as the close brace character on the progress bar.
-bcc | --bar-complete-char char
char as the completed character on the progress bar.
-bic | --bar-incomplete-char char
char as the incomplete character on the progress bar.
-h | --help
Display this text and exit.
-v | --version
Display the program version and exit.
RESOURCE FILE OPTIONS
Some command line options may be specified in a resource file. Bar
will search for a resource file by the name of /etc/clpbarrc and, if
found, bar will use the values within by default. Next bar will search
for ~/.barrc and, if found, bar will use these values to override any
values set within /etc/clpbarrc. Last, bar will search for a file in
the current working directory named ./.barrc. If this file exists,
it's values will override the values found in ~/.barrc or
/etc/clpbarrc. Values in all files may be overridden by command line
flags. Lines that begin with a # are ignored.
For resource options requiring a boolean value, the following values
are recognized: on and off, yes and no, (and the single-character
abbreviations y and n), true and false, (and the single-character
abbreviations t and f), 0 and 1.
For resource options requiring a color value, the same keywords are
recognized as for the color-specific command line options above:
normal, black, red, green, yellow, blue, magenta, cyan, and white
buffer-size: buffer-size
Allocate an I/O buffer of buffer-size bytes. See the --buffer-size
command line option above.
throttle: rate
Restrict I/O throughput to rate bytes per second. See the --throttle
command line option above.
interval: seconds
Update the display every seconds seconds. See the --interval command
line option above.
timeout: microseconds
The number of microseconds to wait for a change in I/O state before
select() times out. See the --timeout command line option above.
kilobyte: 1000|1024
Use either 1000 or 1024 as the definition of a kilobyte. See the
--kilo command line option above.
block-size: size
When parsing sizes specified in terms of blocks, assume a single
block is size bytes. See the --block-size command line option above.
screen-width: width
Override termio and assume that the screen is width characters wide.
See the --screen-width command line option above.
screen-width-minus-one: boolean
Instruct bar to restrict the number of columns reported by termio by
one. See the --screen-width-minus-one command line option above.
display-twiddle: boolean
Instruct bar to turn on/off the twirling twiddle character in the
display. See the --display-twiddle command line option above.
display-title: boolean
Instruct bar to turn on/off the title in the display. See the
--display-title command line option above.
display-count: boolean
Instruct bar to turn on/off the data count in the display. See the
--display-count command line option above.
display-count-bits: boolean
Display the data count as bits instead of as bytes. See the
--display-count-bits command line option above.
display-throughput: boolean
Instruct bar to turn on/off the data throughput in the display. See
the --display-throughput command line option above.
display-throughput-bits: boolean
Display throughput as bits/sec instead of as bytes/sec. See the
--display-throughput-bits command line option above.
display-time: boolean
Instruct bar to turn on/off the time in the display. See the
--display-time command line option above.
display-elapsed-only: boolean
Force bar to display the elapsed time instead of the eta. See the
--display-elapsed-only command line option above.
display-percent: boolean
Instruct bar to turn on/off the percent complete in the display. See
the --display-percent command line option above.
display-bar: boolean
Instruct bar to turn on/off the progress bar in the display. See the
--display-bar command line option above.
display-summary: boolean
Instruct bar to turn on/off the summary information displayed when
operation is complete. See the --display-summary command line option
above.
info-file: infofile
Display the information contained in infofile while copying data.
The file infofile is a regular text file containing tidbits of
information broken up into sections. Each section is separated by a
line containing the string "@@@" by itself, with no other characters
on the line, either preceeding or following.
When bar begins, it will count the number of sections within the
file. Bar will then begin by displaying the first section of
information to the display before it draws the status line. Then,
periodically, each of the successive sections will be displayed as
the progress indicator fills up.
The progress of the data transfer is the trigger for each successive
display. For instance, if your information file has exactly four
sections to it, then the first section will be printed as bar begins,
the second section after the data transfer hits 25%, the third at
50%, and the fourth at 75%.
If bar is configured to use ANSI control codes, then the screen will
be cleared before printing a section from the information file.
Otherwise, the contents of the current screen are scolled up and off
the screen.
display-numeric: boolean
Do not render the usual display, but instead display an integer
representing the percent of the transfer that is complete, one
integer per line. This output is suitable for piping to other
programs such as dialog(1) or zenity(1). This implies that the total
transfer size must be known by bar, either by finding the size of an
input file directly or by using the --size command line option.
display-wait: boolean
Wait for the first byte of data to come through before displaying
anything.
display-ansi: boolean
Instruct bar to turn on/off the use of ansi color codes in the
display. See the --display-ansi command line option above.
space-background: color
Use color as the background color for spacing between display
objects. See the --space-background command line option above.
twiddle-foreground: color
twiddle-background: color
twiddle-bold: boolean
Use the specified colors for the foreground and background of the
twiddle, and use a bold font. See the --twiddle-foreground,
--twiddle-background, and --twiddle-bold command line options above.
title: string
Set the title string for the display. See the --title command line
option above.
title-foreground: color
title-background: color
title-bold: boolean
Use the specified colors for the foreground and background of the
title, and use a bold font. See the --title-foreground, --title-
background, and --title-bold command line options above.
count-foreground: color
count-background: color
count-bold: boolean
Use the specified colors for the foreground and background of the
data count, and use a bold font. See the --count-foreground,
--count-background, and --count-bold command line options above.
throughput-label-foreground: color
throughput-label-background: color
throughput-label-bold: boolean
Use the specified colors for the foreground and background of the
throughput label, and use a bold font. See the --throughput-label-
foreground, --throughput-label-background, and --throughput-label-
bold command line options above.
throughput-foreground: color
throughput-background: color
throughput-bold: boolean
Use the specified colors for the foreground and background of the
throughput, and use a bold font. See the --throughput-foreground,
--throughput-background, and --throughput-bold command line options
above.
time-label-foreground: color
time-label-background: color
time-label-bold: boolean
Use the specified colors for the foreground and background of the
time label, and use a bold font. See the --time-label-foreground,
--time-label-background, and --time-label-bold command line options
above.
time-foreground: color
time-background: color
time-bold: boolean
Use the specified colors for the foreground and background of the
time, and use a bold font. See the --time-foreground, --time-
background, and --time-bold command line options above.
percent-foreground: color
percent-background: color
percent-bold: boolean
Use the specified colors for the foreground and background of the
percent, and use a bold font. See the --percent-foreground,
--percent-background, and --percent-bold command line options above.
bar-brace-foreground: color
bar-brace-background: color
bar-brace-bold: boolean
Use the specified colors for the foreground and background of the
brace surrounding the progress bar, and use a bold font. See the
--bar-brace-foreground, --bar-brace-background, and --bar-brace-bold
command line options above.
bar-foreground: color
bar-background: color
bar-bold: boolean
Use the specified colors for the foreground and background of the
progress bar, and use a bold font. See the --bar-foreground, --bar-
background, and --bar-bold command line options above.
bar-openbrace-char: char
bar-closebrace-char: char
bar-complete-char: char
bar-incomplete-char:
Use the specified custom characters char for the opening brace,
closing brace, completed, and incomplete characters when rendering
the progress bar.
EXAMPLES
Example 1: Using bar to copy a 2.4gb file from a device (in this case a
tape drive) to a file, using a 64k buffer.
prompt% bar --in-file /dev/rmt/1cbn --out-file \
tape-restore.tar --size 2.4g --buffer-size 64k
Example 2: Using bar to copy a 37tb file across the network using SSH.
prompt% ssh remote 'dd if=file' | bar --size 37t > file
Example 3: Using bar inside a tar-pipe command:
Normal tar-pipe command might be:
prompt% (cd /some/dir/somewhere && tar -cf - *) \
| (cd /some/other/dir && tar -xBpf -)
3a: Using bar within the tar-pipe:
prompt% (cd /some/dir/somewhere && tar -cf - *) \
| bar \
| (cd /some/other/dir && tar -xBpf -)
3b: Using bar with the --size option in a tar-pipe:
prompt% du -sk /some/dir/somewhere
6281954 /some/dir/somewhere
prompt% (cd /some/dir/somewhere && tar -cf - *) \
| bar --size 6281954k \
| (cd /some/other/dir && tar -xBpf -)
Example 4: Using bar on a regular file. (Note that the --size option
is not needed here, as bar will retrieve the file size itself.)
prompt% bar --in-file ./file | ssh remote 'cd /some/dir && dd
of=file'
Example 5: Generating a 512k file of random data.
prompt% dd if=/dev/random bs=1024 count=512 \
| bar -s 512k -of ./random
Example 6: An example .barrc file.
#
# This is an example of what a ~/.barrc file
# might look like. Note that lines beginning
# with a # are ignored.
#
display-twiddle: no
display-ansi: yes
# space-background: black
twiddle-foreground: green
# twiddle-background: normal
# twiddle-bold: no
count-foreground: green
# count-background: magenta
count-bold: yes
throughput-label-foreground: normal
# throughput-label-background: red
throughput-label-bold: no
throughput-foreground: green
# throughput-background: black
throughput-bold: yes
time-label-foreground: normal
# time-label-background: red
time-label-bold: no
time-foreground: green
# time-background: black
time-bold: yes
percent-foreground: green
# percent-background: green
percent-bold: yes
bar-brace-foreground: red
# bar-brace-background: blue
bar-brace-bold: no
bar-foreground: yellow
# bar-background: blue
bar-bold: yes
NOTES
- The --size option is only used by bar in calculating information
about the data transfer. Bar will not cease copying data once it has
reached the number of bytes specified with the --size option, but
instead bar will continue to copy data until and end of input is
reached. If this behavior is undesirable then bar may be used in
conjunction with dd, where the count option is used with dd to
specify when to cut off the input stream. (See examples above.)
- When using other commands such as du -k to calculate the expected
size of a data transfer stream, the value returned may not be exactly
the number of bytes counted by bar in the actual data transfer.
Common causes for this discrepancy could be attributed to round-off
error or the use of 1000 bytes as a kilobyte rather than 1024. (If
the later is the case, then using the -k 1000 option to bar will
help.) When such discrepancies occur, bar may report that the data
stream contained only 98% or as much as 101% of it's expected size.
(If you have doubts, you should definitely verify your data using
md5sum, diff, or cmp.)
- When the value of a calculation exceeds the size alloted for the
display, the value +99... will be substituted in it's place. The
complete value will be displayed in a summary statement after bar has
reached the end of input.
- Bar assumes a linear relationship between the speed of the data
transfer and the amount of time remaining. Specifically the
calculation is based on the following:
elapsed time / eta = bytes written / total size
However, it has been the author's experience that the throughput
speed will change, particularly at the beginning of the transfer, and
this will affect the estimated time remaining. The author does not
believe this is a bug, but a side-effect of this method of
calculation.
- Bar assumes that there are 8 bits in both a byte and a char.
BUGS
- Bar uses the open() and fstat() functions to open and retrieve the
size of regular files when using either the --in-file or --out-file
command line options. Some OS's do not support Large Files (file
sizes up to (2**63)-1 bytes) natively. Some OS's support Large Files
but require _FILE_OFFSET_BITS or _LARGE_FILES to be defined properly
at compile time. Other OS's support neither, but still allow
programs to open files in excess of (2**32)-1 through an O_LARGEFILE
option that can be passed to the open() function.
When trying to open files greater than 2gb on an OS without Large
File support, bar will exit with the message: "File too large". When
trying to write more than 2gb of data to a file, bar will write
2**32-1 bytes and then the OS may terminate bar with a message
similar to: "File size limit exceeded".
When trying to open files greater than 2gb on an OS without Large
File support, but with the O_LARGEFILE option that can be passed to
open(), bar will receive an error when trying to retrieve the file's
size, but bar will be able to open the file anyway. Under these
circumstances, bar will print a "File too large" error message, but
will then proceed to transfer the data. Since bar will not be able
to retrieve the file's size on it's own, the --size command line
option must be used after the --in-file option to tell bar the file
size manually. On such OS's, bar should be able to write more than
2gb of data to a file without any problems.
For OS's that support files greater than 2gb, either natively or
through the Large File extension definitions mentioned above, bar
should work as expected.
- The author has noticed that when running bar over an SSH connection,
sometimes window resize events are not captured until after the
display has gone through one or two more updates, which can cause the
line to wrap.
- The author has noticed that on some systems the use of aligned memory
allocation, through either memalign() or posix_memalign(), causes bar
to commit a segmentation fault the first time read() or readv() is
called and passed a pointer to the aligned memory as it's input
buffer. Attempts were made to try to isolate systems in which this
bug bites through tests in configure, but all tests devised passed
with flying colors. Therefore aligned memory allocation is turned
off by default, and may only be enabled by passing --enable-use-
memalign to configure when building the executable.
- On some 64-bit systems it has been found that the CC compiler will,
by default, compile bar in 32-bit mode. This has been known to cause
math errors which result in segmentation faults and infinite loops.
Although multiple configure tests have been added to the compilation
phase to try to properly detect such compilers and compensate for
such bugs, without access to such systems for debugging purposes
there may be other bugs waiting to rear their ugly heads.
Report all bugs to the author.
Bar was developed on a Sun workstation running Solaris 8. To the best
of the author's knowledge bar should compile and run on other platforms
without much trouble. Should other OS's require modifications to the
code, the author welcomes all patch submissions, but requests that you
include the file config.log and the output of gcc -dumpspecs (or a
listing of predefined variables, if not using gcc).
DISTRIBUTION
The latest version of bar can always be found at:
http://www.freshmeat.net/projects/commandlineprogressbar
http://sourceforge.net/projects/clpbar/
AUTHOR
Bar was written by Michael Peek. See DISTRIBUTION above for contact
information.
Occasionally, the author fancies that he knows what he's doing. It is
at these times more than ever that his coworkers should cower in
fear...
4 November 2003 BAR(1)