Re: tail -c fails (coreutils 5.92)

[Paul Eggert]

Vincent Lefevre <address@hidden> writes:

> I have _POSIX2_VERSION=199209 to be able to use forms like "head -5".

With coreutils 5.92, you don't need _POSIX2_VERSION=199209 in your
environment to use "head -5".  "head -5" now has the traditional
meaning regardless of _POSIX2_VERSION's value.  This change came about
becase of clarifications to the standard issued January 2005 by the
Austin Group.  Please see the NEWS file for details.

You may still need to set _POSIX2_VERSION=199209 if you are running
older coreutils versions.

> Also, the following code (considering a boolean as an integer value)
> is at least dirty if not buggy:

It's not a bug.  This sounds like a mere style issue.  C has
well-defined behavior here, and that code operates correctly as far as
I can see.