Bug#404114: gzip: [zdiff] Infine loop in "while : do .. case $1 esac done"

[Jari Aalto]

Package: gzip
Version: 1.3.9-1
Severity: important

It seems that zdiff hangs forever in case like:

    $ bash -x /bin/zdiff /usr/share/info/gzip.info.gz  
/usr/share/info/gzip.info.gz

    + case $1 in
    + :
    + case $1 in
    + :
    + case $1 in
    + :
    + case $1 in
    + :
    + case $1 in
    <infinite loop>

The offending code, which never hits "break", is:

     37 while :; do
     38   case $1 in
     39   --h*) echo "$usage" || exit 2; exit;;
     40   --v*) echo "$version" || exit 2; exit;;
     41   --) shift; break;;
     42   -*) OPTIONS="$OPTIONS $ARG"; shift;;
     43   esac
     44 done

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 4.0
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'stable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Shell:  /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Kernel: Linux 2.6.18-3-686
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C (charmap=ISO-8859-1) (ignored: LC_ALL set to en_US)

Versions of packages gzip depends on:
ii  debianutils                  2.17.4      Miscellaneous utilities specific t
ii  libc6                        2.3.6.ds1-9 GNU C Library: Shared libraries

gzip recommends no packages.

-- no debconf information