Re: GNU Parallel Bug Reports Latest parallel in non-default prefix gives errors about retired options

[Ole Tange]

Included in next release.

/Ole

On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 5:34 PM, Robin Neatherway
<address@hidden> wrote:
> As discussed I attach a small patch for the manual.
>
> Thanks for your work on GNU Parallel, it is a very useful tool.
>
> Robin
>
> On Sat, Aug 30, 2014 at 5:05 PM, Robin Neatherway
> <address@hidden> wrote:
>> On Sat, Aug 30, 2014 at 6:44 AM, Ole Tange <address@hidden> wrote:
>>>> I don't have root access on this machine, so I cannot remove this
>>>> file.
>>>
>>> So the first thing you should do is contact root and explain him that
>>> one should only use --tollef if one knows what one is doing. Doing it
>>> by default is a very bad idea, and when packagers do that, they are
>>> doing it wrong.
>>
>> I have requested that the parallel package be uninstalled from this machine.
>>
>>> Feel free to quote the author of GNU Parallel for saying so.
>>>
>>>> Fedora 20 ships with GNU Parallel 20130522, so while I disagree
>>>> with them using that option by default, it is valid for that version
>>>> of parallel.
>>>
>>> While it is a valid option it should never be a default option in
>>> /etc/parallel/config, so this is a bug in Fedora 20. May I suggest you
>>> file a bug report for Fedora 20, so that can be fixed?
>>
>> According to https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=987621, this
>> is fixed in Fedora 21, and will not be changed in Fedora 20. I found
>> some interesting historical reasoning at
>> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=675495#c6, where they
>> claim the tollef flag was added by discussion with you to avoid
>> upgrades breaking user scripts expecting parallel from moreutils.
>> Presumably it wasn't intended to remain this long.
>>
>>>>> If you do not feel that is described clearly in the manual, please
>>>>> help by rephrasing the manual.
>>>>
>>>> How would you like contributions? A patch to this mailing list against
>>>> this repo: http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/parallel.git?
>>>
>>> That would be fine.
>>>
>>> :
>>>>> You cannot put options that are retired in any config file.
>>>>
>>>> I see. Is it the case for other options that ~/.parallel/config
>>>> overrides /etc/parallel/config, or are they combined? I can't tell
>>>> from the manual, so once I understand I could had a section on
>>>> configuration file precedence.
>>>
>>> They are combined (similar to /etc/bashrc). This is why what you put
>>> in /etc/parallel/config you should be very sure is needed by everyone.
>>>
>>> (To make it work in your case, you simply remove the line containing
>>> /etc/parallel/config from the source.)
>>
>> I see, thanks. I will note this behaviour in any patch for the man page.