Re: bug with 'test'

[Eric Blake]

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You broke threading again.  Usually on mailing lists, you want to hit
reply-to-all instead of reply.

According to The Wanderer on 12/8/2005 11:55 PM:
>>
>> Almost.  POSIX requires "test --help" and "[ --help ]" both to exit
>> silently with status 0 (success), since they are non-zero length
>> one-argument expressions.
> 
> 
> ...then the comment in the source, immediately above the place where the
> usage message is printed, appears to be wrong. I quote:
> 
> ==
>       /* Recognize --help or --version, but only when invoked in the
>          "[" form, and when the last argument is not "]".  POSIX
>          allows "[ --help" and "[ --version" to have the usual GNU
>          behavior, but it requires "test --help" and "test --version"
>          to exit silently with status 1.  */
> ==

Patched thusly:

2005-12-09  Eric Blake  <address@hidden>

        * src/test.c (main): Fix misleading comment.

> 
> As it happened, I had also tried '[ ] ] --help', and got the same
> message - but presumably this can be explained in the same way. It
> somehow seems a little weird that such fundamental programs don't permit
> options to come in 'any place which isn't nonsensical', but I'll admit
> that I don't see any way they could do that and still be as useful in
> the ways in which they are...

POSIX mandates some non-typical behavior on several of the coreutils; for
example "echo --" must print "--" instead of ignoring it, or "printf %s
- --help" must print "--help" instead of treating it as an out-of-order
option.  But where POSIX does not forbid it, the bulk of the coreutils
have GNU behavior of accepting any number of options, in any location
prior to the first --.

- --
Life is short - so eat dessert first!

Eric Blake             address@hidden
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Index: src/test.c
===================================================================
RCS file: /cvsroot/coreutils/coreutils/src/test.c,v
retrieving revision 1.124
diff -u -p -r1.124 test.c
--- src/test.c  16 Sep 2005 07:42:56 -0000      1.124
+++ src/test.c  9 Dec 2005 13:11:52 -0000
@@ -822,7 +822,7 @@ main (int margc, char **margv)
         "[" form, and when the last argument is not "]".  POSIX
         allows "[ --help" and "[ --version" to have the usual GNU
         behavior, but it requires "test --help" and "test --version"
-        to exit silently with status 1.  */
+        to exit silently with status 0.  */
       if (margc < 2 || !STREQ (margv[margc - 1], "]"))
        {
          parse_long_options (margc, margv, PROGRAM_NAME, GNU_PACKAGE, VERSION,