Re: Bug#249177: coreutils: chown is not POSIXLY_CORRECT even when the variable is set

[Jim Meyering]

Paul Eggert <address@hidden> wrote:
>>>   For the BSD -H/-L/-P options, which control file tree walking:
>>>
>>>     -P = --walk=physical
>>>     -H = --walk=hybrid  (I have no idea what -H originally stood for.)
>>>     -L = --walk=logical
>
> As a minor point I'm now thinking that it might be clearer to make
> these options operands of --recursive instead, e.g.,
> --recursive=physical.  This is because -P/-H/-L makes no sense without -R.

Good idea.

>>> * Minor suggestion: "chown : file" should invoke chown with uid and
>>>   gid both set to -1, so that the file ownership and group doesn't
>>>   change but the setuid/setgid bits are cleared (and perhaps ACLs are
>>>   removed).  This might be useful.
>>
>> POSIX seems to require owner[:group].
>> Is it compliant to accept `:'?
>
> Yes, as an upward-compatible extension.  GNU chown already accepts
> ":group" as an extension, for example.

Ok!  Thanks for volunteering.