Re: hash -l with empty hash table prints to stdout

[Eli Schwartz]

On 6/16/20 9:30 AM, Chet Ramey wrote:
> On 6/15/20 4:47 PM, beluro@web.de wrote:
> 
>> Bash Version: 5.0
>> Patch Level: 3
>> Release Status: release
>>
>> Description:
> 
>>      `hash -l' is supposed to generate output that is reusable as input
>>      (`help hash' says so, at least). In case the hash table is empty, a
>>      string not re-usable as input is output to stdout. The exit code
>>      indicates success in this case. The string being output is locale-
>>      dependant (and therefore is hard to filter out in a work-around).
> 
> It's an interesting question. An empty hash table is not an error
> condition, and doesn't result in a non-zero exit status, so output to
> stderr is not appropriate. You might want to temporarily enable posix mode,
> which suppresses the message.

stderr is also a reasonably appropriate place to emit debug info or
warnings. I would consider this a warning condition...

-- 
Eli Schwartz
Arch Linux Bug Wrangler and Trusted User

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