[Top][All Lists]
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
undeniable bug in /usr/bin/spell
From: |
Dan Jacobson |
Subject: |
undeniable bug in /usr/bin/spell |
Date: |
22 Nov 2001 05:29:27 +0800 |
User-agent: |
Gnus/5.0808 (Gnus v5.8.8) Emacs/20.7 |
Gentlemen, consider what happened when I did
(dired-do-shell-command "spell" nil (quote ("romanization.htm")))
It produced no output, which, if I recall the way things worked back
in the old days,
$ spell file
and one got no output, it meant there were no errors.
Well, I happen to know there are errors in my file, but I am fooled
that there are no errors. Let's play the blame game.
$ which spell|xargs cat
#!/bin/sh
# ispell -l mimicks the standard unix spell program, roughly.
exec ispell -l $*
-----------
they really ought to say who wrote this. Also, don't the pros use
${1+"$@"} or something. And does the exec being on the last line help
[just curious].
Anyway, who put that spell program on my system?
$ which spell|xargs rpm -qif
Group : Text tools Source RPM:
ispell-3.1.20-13mdk.src.rpm
Ispell is the GNU interactive spelling checker.
Ah, "GNU"...
$ man spell
No manual entry for spell
well, ok, I suppose if I told them to fold up their vdir man page, I
guess I shouldn't complain about not having a spell man page... But:
why don't you link it to the ispell man page and there and put a
"spell" usage along with the several "ispell" usages listed in the
SYNOPSIS section.
By the very important way,
The -l or "list" option to ispell is used to produce a
list of misspelled words from the standard input.
Therefore the shell script fellow should do
cat ${1+"$@"}|ispell -l
no?
Indeed, if I remember the original UNIX spell output, I think you need
cat ${1+"$@"}|ispell -l|sort -u
to emulate it best.
One could go whole hog with
cat ${1+"$@"}|ispell -l|sort|uniq -c
but that wouldn't be an emulation of original spell
Anyways, if I hadn't been in emacs, I would have seen that just as
this says
$ man ispell
SYNOPSIS
ispell [common-flags] -l
your argument is ignored and it is trying to read standard input,
being in emacs caused the bug to cause even more damage: fooling me
that my file was perfectly spelled without a hint of malfunction.
--
http://www.geocities.com/jidanni/ Tel+886-4-25854780
- undeniable bug in /usr/bin/spell,
Dan Jacobson <=