forgot to add that I then unalias convert and with ImageMagick
convert in my path (/sw/bin/ on my mac) it gets picked up from my path.
colin
On Feb 15, 2008, at 10:13 AM, Malcolm J. Currie wrote:
>> The "convert" command can not be an executable script because it sets
>> environment variables (presumably you wouldn't want it to launch a
>> new
>> shell) and so has to be an alias.
>
> Good point. The environment variables are used by the on-the-fly
> conversion definitions. These were introduced several years into
> CONVERT's life and a few years after the convert alias existed.
>
>> The clash with ImageMagick commands is unfortunate but both these
>> commands have been around for a long time and in the dim and distant
>> past there was no clash because many sites would not have even known
>> what ImageMagick was. I have no idea when the "convert" commands
>> first
>> existed but it's difficult to plan forward.
>
> CONVERT has been around since 1988, and KAPPA first appeared in 1987
> October, while ImageMagick was released in 1990 August.
>
>> Once linux distributions became popular and started shipping with
>> ImageMagick by default it may have been that Starlink should have
>> just
>> bowed to the inevitable and changed the package name for CONVERT to
>> something else.
>
> It's not as if this has been a common complaint. I'd be reluctant to
> change the command initialisation across the board given current
> resources.
>
> Malcolm Currie
>
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